


aut vincere aut mori

by Kells



Series: gifts, requests, and other little bits [5]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Female Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-29
Updated: 2015-08-05
Packaged: 2018-02-27 10:47:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 24,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2689982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kells/pseuds/Kells
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You really think they’ll go for this?”</p><p>Their mentor smirks.</p><p>“The star-crossed lovers of District Six? I’ll give you any odds they’re hooked already.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vaalbara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vaalbara/gifts).



> I know! I'm sorry! I watched Mockingjay (0.5) and listened to The Hanging Tree seven squillion times, and then…this happened.

When Emma Frost names Stephanie Rogers the 74th female tribute to represent District Six at the Hunger Games, the eighteen-year-old takes the stage without being coerced. Only weeks from being aged out of the Reaping, she could easily be mistaken for a younger girl if not for the composure with which she stands there with her eyes locked on some fixed point in the middle distance. No one else reacts much either- the cameras sweep across the crowd to find only blank resignation and mild, unspoken sympathy.

“It’s always Six,” Tony Stark complains from the gamemakers’ studio at the Tribute Centre. “They really are all on morphling.”

He’s been doing this job ever since his father …stepped down as head of the games, and he’s never seen one decent reaction from the mouth-breathers who run the country’s transport network.

“It’s the shock,” Pepper suggests, bored already. They have this conversation every year, more or less. “They’ll be in tears by the time they get on the train; we can use that again.”

This time, though, it doesn’t take that long. The Capitol escort adjusts her milk-white furs to dip a diamond-crusted hand into the reaping bowl.

“Thaddeus Flynn,” she calls, each syllable cracking like glass, and then Tony gets the response he’s never bothered to hope for from Six. It doesn’t come from the frail thirteen-year-old or his pale and trembling sisters- before any of the Flynn family even realize what’s happening, the female tribute stumbles forward.

“No! No, don’t you dare-“

“I volunteer as tribute.”

The crowd parts as though enchanted, and a dark-haired boy, tall and strapping in that railway boy way, steps out of the crowd as the cameras track his steady light grey eyes. Twelve won’t like that, Tony thinks absently; some years, it’s the only thing anyone remembers about the outer districts.

“Oh my,” Emma murmurs, taken aback for the first time since she was appointed. As usual, her assumed gaiety is as false as it proves hypnotic. “Well, this is a first, isn’t it? What’s your name, young man?”

He doesn’t get a chance to answer.

“What did you do? Stupid, stupid- why’d you go and-“

Stephanie falls against the volunteer like she’s been bludgeoned from behind, but careful, familiar hands prevent her from falling.

“It’s okay,” he whispers, his voice low enough that it would be intensely private if not for the microphones Tony's improved personally. “I go where you go, right?”

Stephanie shakes her head wildly, barely coherent through her tears.

“Not here. Not like this, Bucky.”

Emma sees her chance and seizes it.

“Bucky? Is that a nickname?”

She almost manages to conceal her distaste; the boy nods without relaxing his grip on Stephanie’s forearms.

“James Barnes, ma’am.”

Behind Tony, Pepper presses a hand to her headset, tapping the other against their screen as she reminds their cameramen in District Six not to lose sight of the mentor who will see James and Stephanie through their time in the arena. As usual, her instincts are right on the money: Peggy Carter, who won her games as a Career with District Two, is showing something like emotion for the first time since she agreed to mentor Six until she trains her own successor. Tony is sure she’s never spoken at a reaping before.

“I assume you two have met.”

“She’s my fiancée.”

That’s new, Tony thinks. Which is itself new- Howard would say there’s nothing new under the sun, but this has definitely never happened before. Pepper gasps, one delicate hand flying to her mouth. The black diamond Tony ordered specially sparkles on her finger as Stephanie Rogers scowls and jerks out of her Bucky’s grasp.

“I was, you mean.”

 “Steph-”

“What? We’re not getting married _now_ , are we?”

For the first time, James Barnes looks like he understands what he’s done. Emma’s skin sparkles like the tears on her tributes’ cheeks.

“District Six,” she announces in that high, swooping voice. “These are your tributes.”

James tries to take his partner’s hand, but Stephanie shakes him off with more strength than Tony would have expected from her. The boy’s face crumples, but Peggy Carter leads them both away with a gleam in her eye that makes Tony think of his father for some reason. Pepper- Pepper Potts, who has not only stared down President Osborne at company meetings but danced with his crazy son with a smile unwavering on her lovely face- is in tears before they cut to District Seven. When Tony touches her hand in question or comfort, she glares at him like it’s his fault.

“They can’t both come back.”

Tony laces their fingers together and wonders what he’d do if anyone ever calmly announced their plans to have his fiancée killed for someone else’s entertainment.

“Maybe he’d rather die with her than leave her to do it on her own.”

It makes a kind of sense. Pepper dabs at her face with the silk handkerchief Tony offers her; her smile is sharp, like it gets before she tells someone to get the cannons ready.

“At least it’s memorable.”

She’s right, of course. After five minutes of this Stephanie and her James, Tony can barely remember the Careers who were introduced just a few districts earlier- and he’s _met_ some of those kids. The sponsors are going to be tripping over themselves to see James and Stephanie through for long enough to watch this drama play out.

“District Six sets the standard this year. Who’d have thought?”

Good for Carter, Tony thinks; it’s about time she had something to work with.

The tributes are normally glued to the window by the time they get to District Four, but Stephanie Rogers is still glaring into her lap as sparkling waters lap at white-gold shores to her right. If only they could bottle that look, Peggy wouldn’t even need to talk to sponsors this year.

“You know,” she says too casually. “You could allow your young man the dignity of his choice.”

It’s a noble gesture, she means. Stephanie, it turns out, wasn’t looking for unsolicited heroics in a fiancé.

“He’s welcome to it,” she spits. “Of course I’m glad he wants to go out and throw his life away for nothing. That sounds real dignified, Ms. Carter.”

“You both know I can hear you, right?”

Stephanie goes back to glaring while Peggy tries to tell herself she doesn’t feel absurd meddling in the romantic life of a pair of doomed teenagers. She looks over at the boy at the bar.

“Have you told her _why_ you did it?”

“How can I, when she won’t even look at me?”

The sponsors will adore this boy, Peggy knows. It’s no secret that good-looking older tributes are the most marketable demographic by far, and this one is more than just tall, dark and handsome. James wears the air of casual martyrdom like he was born to play this role- which raises an interesting question.

“How long have you been planning this?”

Stephanie, who seems not to have considered the possibility that her young man reacted in anything but spur-of-the-moment chivalry, looks up in spite of herself. James shrugs, matter-of-fact.

“I was never gonna let her go out there alone.”

Peggy won her games with the vintage revolver she still keeps by her bed at night. The boy she killed to win reached the final two by snapping his opponents’ necks with his bare hands. Somehow, that memory is less chilling than the quiet determination with which James admits that he’s been ready to volunteer since he was twelve years old. Stephanie is on her feet, fists tightly clenched.

“How is this better, huh?”

For a moment, James looks oddly exhilarated. He _has_ been trying to get Stephanie to acknowledge him for days. When he speaks, though, it’s clear that he’s thought this through.

“You’re not made for the Hunger Games, Steph.”

Peggy, all but born and bred for the games, wonders if she should feel praised or insulted. Stephanie looks almost hurt.

“You think I can’t do it.”

James crosses the room to drop into the seat next to hers; he’d like to take her hand, Peggy sees, but he won’t ask if Stephanie doesn’t offer.

“I know you _could_. Doesn't mean you should have to.”

She obviously doesn’t understand. Peggy isn’t sure that she does, either; Stephanie glances her way for a moment before she lifts her chin.

“Why the hell not, if _you’re_ so ready to do it?”

James looks at Peggy almost apologetically, then glances away. Those eyes will be another advantage, she thinks; every time they darken like that, that tragic intensity will keep both her tributes fed for the night. He speaks very quietly. If he hadn’t volunteered, he ventures, Stephanie would be telling little Thaddeus stories now, trying to keep his spirits up. She’d look after him in the arena, too, and anyone else small or weak or scared. She’d never raise a weapon once, and even the guys who ended up killing her would wish they hadn’t had to.

“You’re wrong,” Stephanie protests weakly. “Of course I’d do what I had to so I could come home.”

“Sure,” James says darkly. “Lie and cheat and kill for me, then let them drag you back home screaming and spend the rest of our lives begging me to kill you so you could forget.”

It takes Peggy a moment to catch her breath; she’s never heard someone who wasn’t a victor articulate the condition quite so clearly. Stephanie looks almost frightened; she, apparently, has _not_ been planning her own reaping since she was old enough to qualify.

“Bucky,” she murmurs, and this time he does take her hand.

“You’re gonna be okay,” he says, just like at the reaping. “I won’t let them make you anything you’re not.”

The fire’s back in Stephanie’s eyes now, but this time it’s defiance instead of hurt and anger.

“What about you, huh?”

James smiles slightly.

“I’ll be fighting for you, Steph; that’s just normal.”

He says it like it can be that simple; Stephanie drops her head and kisses his knuckles.

“Maybe I’ll fight for you, huh? What’re you going to do then?”

He shrugs, not quite playful.

“You know I never let you win.”

Stephanie glares; this is familiar ground.

“I might beat you fair’n square.”

Her James smiles, suddenly rakish but also, still, somehow sweet.

“You keep tellin’ yourself that.”

Stephanie pulls her fiancé into a desperate embrace.

“Bucky, what the hell are you asking me to do?”

“Just trust me,” he murmurs, and Peggy sees the moment Stephanie understands that she was always going to give in to the boy who loves her more than his own life.

“I’m not asking you to do anything you don’t want to. Just stay with me, okay, and we’ll figure it out as we go, same as always.”

She nods, leaning into him; they press together until their foreheads touch and stay like that, letting the swaying of the carriage move everything except their firm embrace. The victors from District Four talk about sea legs and land legs; these two are as steady on a moving train as Peggy would be on solid rock.

“Will you take your ring back now?”

Stephanie begins to nod, but Peggy realizes she has a more effective plan.

“Don’t,” she snaps; they both freeze. Stephanie closes her hand over the ring protectively, like she thinks Peggy might take it away from her, but doesn’t move to slip it on. “I’m afraid you two aren’t going to make up so easily.”

 They turn as one, so strong in their defiance that Peggy feels a rush of something dangerously similar to hope. She’d felt it once before, when the girl from One had fallen unexpectedly to her death and Peggy had realized that with her biggest competition out of the way she had a real chance of surviving the games.

“The Capitol is made up of voyeurs and sadists,” she tells her wide-eyed tributes calmly. The Avox clearing their drinks makes a strange, shocked sound, but it’s not like he has any reason to disagree. “Not exclusively, obviously, but most of the ones to whom these games appeal.”

Stephanie looks indignant but resigned; James nods at the confirmation of a long-held belief.

“They tire easily. You can’t give them what they want too soon.”

They’ve all seen that too many times before. James looks intrigued.

“Keep ‘em guessing, you mean?”

It’s not just that, but Peggy nods encouragingly. Stephanie frowns.

“You’re saying we should make them think we’re fighting because they want us to make up.”

“Because they want to _see_ us make up,” James corrects her as the pieces fall into place. “The longer we take, the longer they’ll have to keep us around to get the ending they want.”

“I hate them,” Stephanie answers, then blinks as though that isn’t where she’d expected that thought to end. James laughs, caught off guard, and leans in to kiss her chastely on the lips.

“I love you, Steph Rogers.”

Her fingers skim his cheek, infinitely tender.

“Enough of that,” Peggy says briskly. “You hate that he’s throwing his life away, remember?”

“I do,” Stephanie agrees; James scowls.

“You’re not going to tell me I have to stay away from her in there as well.”

He didn’t sign up for this to leave her vulnerable for the sake of plot convenience, those stormy eyes imply. Peggy shakes her head impatiently.

“You love her, don’t you? You’re not going to give her a choice about whether you protect her; it’s hardly your fault she won’t give you the time of day while you do it.”

James is grinning by the time she’s finished, but Stephanie looks like she’s not sure she can do it. Peggy finds herself smiling at the anxious tribute.

“You can want to wring his neck for being an impetuous ass and still keep an eye on him before he gets himself killed doing something you never asked him to do.”

Stephanie nods like she’s giving her solemn word. Both look at Peggy as if she’s a genius, and the strange, delicious thing is that she thinks she might be too, a little bit- for the first time since she won the bloody games she’s beginning to think she might be able to bring one of her kids home. Stephanie sighs, visibly resisting the urge to lean into her partner, and throws a silent appeal Peggy’s way.

“You really think they’ll go for this?”

Their mentor smirks.

“The star-crossed lovers of District Six? I’ll give you any odds they’re hooked already.”

They’re coming into the final station- it’s the ideal moment for a dramatic gesture. “Go on, then- give that back. You’ve got nothing to say to a man who’d sooner die than keep his word, remember?”

Stephanie presses her ring into the palm of the boy’s hand; they know why she’s doing it, but Peggy sees that her admittedly melodramatic choice of words has cut deeper than she intended. There are tears in Stephanie’s eyes by the time she turns away. James starts forward like it's second nature to go after her, giving Peggy the perfect opportunity to put a quelling, mentorly arm around his shoulder and keep him in place at the window. It takes a moment for James to realise that the ringing in his ears is neither guilt nor static. He looks up, perfectly vulnerable in his surprise, and waves back on reflex as strangers in garish wigs scream his name and Stephanie’s.

“That’s right,” Peggy mutters, lips barely moving from the grimace which is all she ever lets the Capitol see of her. “Suck them in now. The more they want to do for you the more you’ll be able to concentrate on the important things.”

The boy is not without a little genius of his own, it seems- James must know every eye in the station is on him when he presses his lips to the ring in his hand and closes his eyes, leaning forwards so his fringe falls over his face. It only takes one intelligent cameraman- Parker gets the shot, and countless sponsors burst into noisy tears when their glossy magazines show them Stephanie Rogers, tearful and angry but as captivated as they are by the sight of her doomed suitor’s quiet grief. She can lie to herself, the columnists opine reproachfully, but that girl’s not fooling anyone.

Emma adjusts her cream-and-crystal corset one last time, and they’re on their way. They have one more exquisite moment on the platform- as Stephanie gets off the train, her ex-fiancé offers her his hand. It's obviously a habit almost as old as they are, and the whole station breathes in collectively as the young lovers’ fingers brush- until Stephanie scowls and pushes past, eyes averted. A thousand voices sigh, disconsolate, as James steps aside and watches her catch up with Emma.

“I’d still marry you,” a girl with aquamarine skin and flowing silver hair whispers in consolation, barely holding herself back from stroking the young man’s face. Her eyelashes are heavy not only with sapphire dust but with tears not yet shed for this year’s tragic hero. “I think what you’re doing is wonderful.”

Somehow, James manages not to point out that Stephanie’s objection is as much logistical as ideological- even if Peggy had let her keep the ring they all know there can be no wedding. He surprises everyone around them by patting the other teenager’s arm congenially.

“Thanks. Remember that when there’re people tryin’a kill us, okay?”

Peggy grabs the boy’s wrist and drags him bodily away before the crowd realizes their new darling is _touching people_.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> District Six does not produce a Girl on Fire so much as a poor attempt to render a train in human form; Bucky is good at training but Steph doesn't know how to follow a script to save her life.

Peggy Carter takes one look at them, pinches the bridge of her nose, and walks away from the chariot without a word. Steph doesn’t say anything either, at first- she’s too busy plucking resentfully at the red and white striped corset that envelopes her torso in a way that seems much more uncomfortable than flattering. The star at the centre of her chest lights up when she raises her arms, which are bare except for bright red elbow gloves that have, as far as they can tell, nothing to do with the rest of the outfit. The skirt they have her in is peacock blue, and would be just right if it were about four inches longer.

“I don’t get how this looks like a train at all.”

Steph’s hands drop to tug at her skirt instead of her top. Bucky shrugs, going for clownish because he’s not sure there’s anything he can say that would reassure her.

“Could be worse. At least they didn't go with two stars, higher up.”

The boy from Seven, who looks even more miserable in his paper-and-woodchip ensemble, snorts with laughter in the chariot next to them. Bucky offers him a grin when their eyes lock, but the guy’s district partner bats at his arm in warning and he drops his eyes, chastised. Steph sighs, costume forgotten as the weight of everything else comes crashing down anew, and Bucky decides he’s going to have to fix this himself as well. He shrugs off his leather jacket and holds it out.

“Here, put this on.”

“What? We can’t just-“

“Who’s gonna stop us?”

They’ve been told not to alter their assigned costumes, but it’s not like they can make it worse than Bucky wearing more or less his actual work clothes while Steph is dressed like a call girl who caters specifically to guys with some kind of fetish for brightly coloured locomotives. Because, apparently, what their stylists got out of the Reaping was that Steph is the engine which drives her railway boy. Bucky shudders a little, and maybe Steph is thinking along similar lines because she puts the jacket on instead of trying to give it back.

“See? That’s better.”

It’s not just that he likes seeing her in his clothes. The stiff black leather makes all the difference- it covers up the worst of that bodice, leaving Steph looking less like an esoteric hooker and more like her own sweet self, only tougher than she’d be if she didn’t have the hunger games to deal with. Bucky rolls back his sleeves like he would if he were actually on signal duty and realises that he knows just how to make a first impression the Capitol won’t forget. Steph’s still watching his face, her hands clenched to remind herself not to reach out and adjust his collar or fix his hair.

“You trust me, Steph, right?”

She probably thinks he means about the outfits until he steps off the chariot just as the commentators announce District Six.

The crowd is electrified- they know immediately what he’s going to try. It may be the only thing anyone beyond districts five and seven knows about the railways guys- kids from all over line stations, orchards, hedgeways and beaches to watch the District Six signallers at work. It’s quick and potentially deadly work- once you get off, you have a matter of seconds to update the board and leap back on before the train whips away and leaves you stranded.

It’s probably safer with the chariot, which is neither on an electric track nor hurtling towards the outer districts at full speed, but it’s a lot more delicately balanced than a train, and Bucky doesn’t really want to know what they’ll do to him in the arena if he becomes the guy who wrecked their opening ceremony with poorly-considered theatrics.

“Here! Take my hand!”

Steph seems to think she can tug him back up, but with the momentum of the chariot he’s just as likely to yank her off with him.

“No, just get clear! I can do this!”

Steph has little choice except to let him try. Bucky jumps- it’s higher than he’d thought, but he makes it, more or less. He teeters on the edge of the swiftly-moving platform for two breathless seconds, then Steph grabs his vest and drags him roughly to safety. She clasps him to her for a moment, her fists still clenched in his clothes.

“I’m okay,” he gasps, offering her- and the crowd, now that the cameras are close on the two of them- a brazen grin entirely at odds with the way his heart is hammering.

“We’re good, Steph.”

Now that she knows he isn’t about to be crushed to death before the games even start, Steph looks mad enough to push him back off the goddamn chariot. Bucky takes her still-gloved hand in his and raises it to his lips. The crowd is much more delighted with this than Steph is, but he smiles anyway, hoping she’ll go along with it for now and yell at him later.

“Thank you.”

She snatches her hand back, stiff with anger, but she does smile and wave at the people screaming their names. There’ll be hell to pay later, maybe, but in the meantime all eyes are on them, and the madding crowd is smiling at his girl. Job done, Bucky sags against the railing and tries to get a handle on the way his chest is heaving.   

He gets a shelling from Peggy Carter for being reckless, irresponsible, and generally impossible to direct, but Steph says nothing. At all. For days. Bucky tries to apologise, to find out what he’s done that’s somehow worse than volunteering in the first place, and even to straight up beg forgiveness unconditionally, but she won’t so much as look at him except when she thinks he isn’t watching. It gets so bad that Peggy decides they have to be trained separately- Emma can’t even look at the pair of them sitting stiff and silent without bursting into tears instead of telling them how to connect with a Capitol audience at their interviews.

Peggy makes Bucky try everything once, and to his own surprise it turns out he’s not too bad with a rifle. It kind of makes sense- he’s pretty steady on his feet, and he’s always had good eyes. The part of his job that hasn’t prepared him for chariot tricks, after all, requires him to read those signals from up to a mile away, sometimes in the dead of night. Peggy squeezes his arm and books him private sessions so that they can train without giving his newfound skill away to the watching pack of Careers. Bucky starts to say he never knew that was an option, then remembers the familiar, fawning way the Tribute Centre staff greeted Peggy and wonders if perhaps it isn’t unless you’re with the Careers. He tries not to look at his mentor differently after that, telling himself firmly that anything that brings him closer to getting his girl out alive is a blessing.

Their trials go fine- Steph rates an eight, though for what Bucky may never know because she’s still not talking to him, and Bucky gets a nine for feats of high-altitude agility because Peggy thinks that if he lets on about the rifle they may decide he’s doing _too_ well and make sure there isn’t one in the arena.

In frighteningly little time, there’s nothing left between Bucky and the Hunger Games except for a live interview with Panem’s favourite TV personality, Remy LeBeau.

“I can’t do this,” Steph mutters to Peggy or Emma. Possibly to the stage itself, but definitely not to Bucky.

“You’ll be fine,” he says anyway, doing his best not to sound bitter. “At least we’re not acting anymore, huh.”

She doesn’t even raise her eyes. Bucky sighs, already regretting the acid in his tone, and tries to lighten the tension between them.

“At least they didn’t dress you as a train again.”

She looks up this time, startled into laughter and immediately annoyed that he’s managed that much.

“Can’t risk it, can they- what the hell will anyone do if you jump off the goddamn stage while they’re live?”

“Stephanie,” Emma chides- if her voice rises any more they’ll probably be audible from the stage. Bucky shrugs- at least she kind of spoke to him directly.

“You’re gonna be great,” he says, because she is. “There’s no one but complete morons won’t love you right away, Steph.”

She looks at Bucky like he’s just slapped her across the face, but before he has a chance to demand what exactly he’s doing so much more wrong than usual an usher grabs Steph’s wrist and hisses that she’s up next. In less than a minute she’s smiling uncertainly as that too-charming host kisses her hand and looks her over with those strange black-and-crimson eyes.

“Stephanie Rogers,” Remy purrs appreciatively, and they talk for a while about home, her outfit, her impressions of the capitol. It’s all going fine- not great, but not terrible- until, inevitably, Remy brings up the fact that Steph’s the first person in the history of the games to have someone declare their intention to protect her from within the arena.

“I must say, I think I see where young James is coming from.”

Steph looks away, jaw clenched.

“Don’t you go killin’ yourself over it, okay?”

LeBeau clutches at his heart, glancing into the crowd appealingly.

“You’re not still cross with him, are you? That poor boy loves you so-”

“He’s a liar.”

A discontented ripple cuts through the hush- this isn’t what they want at all. Peggy leans forward.

“What do you mean, chere?”

Steph shrugs.

“You’ve seen him, right?”

They clap and scream- based on the recaps they’ve seen a _lot_ of him.

“It’s like he likes it here,” Steph complains, and the crowd goes wild again. Bucky would think this was part of Emma’s get-them-on-your-side-early strategy, except he’s known since the escort went so far as to slump unhappily in her seat that Steph’s long since left her prepared script in the dust. Remy, looking a little uncertain but playing it off as casual curiosity, touches Steph’s arm amiably.

“Is that so bad?”

Steph nods once.

“If he loves me so much,” she murmurs, tripping over the words. "Why’s he so goddamn ready to leave me on my own?”

There’s a moment of confused, discontented silence, but they’re nearly out of time and Remy can’t possibly let the interview end like that.

“Come now,” he cries, upbeat in the worst of ways. “Surely you can understand his wanting to protect you?”

Steph’s head bobs again, her perfectly styled curls bouncing as she does.

“I can understand,” she admits, her voice as calm and clear as evening light. “But I’m not ever going to forgive him.”

It’s Emma who squeezes Bucky’s forearm, her white manicure showing up bright against his suit jacket. You can do this, her glittering eyes say more kindly than Bucky’s ever imagined she could be. He smiles a little, and is still smiling when Remy drags him into an awful, intimate hug.

“James Barnes! This city’s never heard one young man’s name quite so many times in the lead-up to the Hunger Games, my friend.”

That’s not true and they both know it, but the crowd goes wild, so Bucky attempts a charming grin.

“Sorry,” he says as cheerfully as he can manage. “I hope you’re not all sick’a me already.”

The roar of denial is both sickening and reassuring. Remy beams at him, obviously relieved that Bucky’s interview isn’t going to go quite like Steph’s. They talk about his work, the orphanage where he and Steph grew up, and what he thinks of the feather beds at the Tribute Centre before they end up back where everything always begins.

“Why’d you do it, James?”

Bucky shrugs, staring at his lap before he remembers Emma’s admonishments about eye contact.

“I promised myself I was gonna take care of her,” he says quietly. “At home, at work, in the arena- I don’t much care. I’ll never let anyone hurt her.”

They love this, of course, but the cameras make sure everyone sees the tears on Steph's face as she averts her eyes. Remy LeBeau didn’t get his job without a keen awareness of just what questions his audience most wants answered.

“Was it worth it, though? She says she can’t forgive you.”

Bucky tries and completely fails to smile.

“I don’t need her to forgive me. I just want to see my girl home safe.”

The applause is deafening. As the crowd calms, Remy leans in confidentially.

“So you’d do it again, even knowing what our Miss Rogers thinks?”

This is a question Bucky’s thought about every year since before he was in his teens, so he doesn’t have to work too hard to come up with an answer.

“Every time, pal.”

Emma is beside herself with pride, and Bucky thinks Peggy looks quite close to genuinely approving as the cameras hold on the team from Six before they move on. Remy LeBeau is still dabbing his eyes at the memory of Bucky’s “manly stoicism” about four interviews later, and they’re still getting more adoring looks than anyone else as they leave. Steph disappears into her room as soon as they’re back on their floor, though- Peggy has to knock to get enough time to say her goodbyes and give Steph her instructions.

She comes out to find Bucky still slumped against the wall, unwilling to knock but not quite ready to leave yet, and surprises him by dropping gracefully to sit with him.

“I don’t say this lightly,” she announces, watching him calmly with those rich chocolate eyes. “But you’re in the best possible position right now.”

Bucky snorts, but his mentor presses on.

“Everyone adores you. You’re strong, you’re bright, and you have skills they haven’t even seen yet.”

Her hand is light on his shoulder.

“There’s a damn good chance you’re going to be the one who chooses the winner.”

He smiles crookedly. His question is not, at all, in jest.

“Swear you’ll look after her when I can’t?”

Peggy always takes them seriously, Bucky thinks with a rush of affection. Even though she was a Career, even though there’s every chance they’re going to fail her- even though she knows better than anyone what it’s like to be lost and scared the day before these bloody games.

“I promise,” she says solemnly, and Bucky believes her. Peggy nods again, then rises swiftly and leaves without so much as reminding her tribute he should get some rest before the killing starts.

“C’mon,” he whines when he gets bored of staring at a locked door. “This is embarrassing, Steph. I feel like I’m in detention or something.”

There’s no answer except the dim electrical hum that never seems to go away here. Bucky sighs for the seven millionth time since the Reaping.

“I’m sorry, okay? I don’t know what you want me to say. I love you, Steph Rogers, and I-”

“Go to sleep, Bucky.”

Bucky resists the urge to rush the door before Steph realizes she’s talking to him and slams it all over again. She’s even making eye contact for the first time in days.

“Can’t,” he mutters breathlessly. His voice is choked, his eyes already damp. “Steph, please god don’t make me go out there without saying goodb-“

And then she’s kneeling in front of him, crushing her lips to his before he says something else she can’t forgive.

“Don’t you dare say that word until one or both of us is bleeding, understand?”

Bucky can’t do much more than nod.

“Steph,” he whispers. “Steph, my Steph.”

“Shut up,” she mutters. “You’re so goddamn stupid, Bucky."

“I’ve got this,” he says quietly. “Steph, I’m going to-“

“No,” she murmurs, taking his hand after he's scrambled to his feet.

“Not now. Come to bed, James.”

His wide-eyed look makes her laugh, so fond it hurts. At least he isn't going to die before he sees her smile again. 

“Not like that, idiot. Just stay with me, okay?”

“That’s been my point since the fucking Reaping, Steph.”

“Shut up,” she says sternly, but kisses him again before they fall asleep together like they might never do again.

 “I’ll come for you,” Bucky whispers in the morning, loathe to leave her in the few hours they have left but knowing he can’t be in her room when Emma comes in to announce their biggest big, big day. “Steph, no matter where-”

“I know,” she promises, her tearful eyes intense. “I’ll be there, my heart.”

She’s never called him that before. It’s almost enough to let Bucky imagine that his own heart isn’t breaking as he turns, still trying to smile, and walks away from her. The next time they see each other will be in the arena.

Just before he has to leave, Peggy catches his hand.

“If I were at all inclined towards gambling I’d stake everything I had on you and Stephanie making it to the end.”

“Thanks,” Bucky mutters. “For everything. Promise I’ll shoot straight.”

He stifles a yelp as his mentor pulls him into a quick, firm embrace.

“You’re a hero already, James. I hope you understand that.”

He shakes his head.

“Not ‘til she wins.”

It doesn't seem like the right last thing to ever say to this woman who's tried so hard to help him, though, and who will be Steph's last lifeline in a couple of weeks. Bucky swallows hard, then offers Peggy one last rakish grin. “You go ahead and tell her that as often as you like after, though.”

Peggy cracks a rare smile, heartfelt but hurting at the edges.

“You have my word.”

At this stage, it’s going to have to be enough.

Bucky steps into the one-man elevator.

The countdown begins.

A minute later, so do the Hunger Games.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 1 from Steph's point of view

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I dunno if this is a necessary warning for Hunger Games fic but, just to be safe- teenagers start dying in this chapter, some of them kind of horribly : (

Steph is trembling before the countdown reaches single digits, but not from fear. She’s never heard of a winter arena before, but that must be the plan this year because it’s so cold that her eyes are tearing and her lips are starting to feel numb. She can’t see Bucky anywhere- he must be on the other side of the great central fixture rising up at the centre of their rigid circle. The Cornucopia literally glows with the promise of warmth just out of reach, but that’s not what Peggy wants for them. Steph squares her shoulders like Bucky getting ready for an argument he doesn’t think he’s going to win, and promises herself she’s going to follow their plan and trust him to do the same.

A muffled sob reminds her vividly that she isn’t the only one who’d rather be anywhere else in the world than here. On her left, a scrawny kid who must be only weeks over reaping age is crumpling in on himself as the huge, shaggy-haired boy from Two eyes him like a predator who’s found its next meal. Bucky’s not going to like this, Steph knows, but she can’t just-

The horns blare, the games are declared open, and before she’s even finished thinking the thought Steph has grabbed the younger boy’s wrist and taken off for the tree-line at a run. Her new companion shrieks in wordless terror as the Career bounds after them, but the girl from 10 is closer, and although Steph drags her charge all the more ferociously up the steep incline leading away from the carnage his ragged gasp of horror does nothing to drown out the hideous crunch that says much more than Steph ever wanted to know.It’s decided, then- they make for the high ground without so much as a weapon between them, and don’t stop running until Steph’s new ally stops dead and tugs eagerly on her hand.

“Look, there!”

Steph follows the line of her companion's arm, but she has no idea what she’s supposed to be looking at until he pulls her close enough to make out the narrow mouth of a cave she’d never have spotted on her own. They approach cautiously, but Steph is almost completely sure nothing’s going to jump out and eat them by the time they collapse in an exhausted tangle.  

“Good job,” she tells her still-trembling ally brightly, the words a little stilted because although she’s much warmer from all that running her face is chapped and sore from the biting wind they’ve only just escaped.

"I would have walked right by here.”

With any luck, so will (almost) anyone who thinks to come after them. The boy smiles for the first time, pearly teeth all the brighter in the dark. Steph’s fists clench involuntarily- he’s so young, and it’s just _not fair._

“You’re from Eleven, right?”

He nods, still shy.

“Sam.”

She offers him her hand solemnly.

“I’m Steph. From Six.”

Sam looks like he’s not sure whether Steph is pulling his leg.

“I know _that_.”

Steph huffs impatiently, at least partly to mask the way her heart drops at the realisation that- maybe for the first time since she met him- she has no idea at all where Bucky is. Peggy made her promise to get away from the bloodbath, find shelter and the high ground, and let Bucky find her. For lack of options that’s what they’ve done, but now that they’re there Steph can’t do anything about the visions of him already dead or dying that don’t go away however hard she blinks.

She starts a little when Sam squeezes her hand, earnest in his encouragement.

“I bet he finds us before dark. D’you think he’ll bring food?”

Steph laughs in spite of herself, surprising Sam with a hug.

“Thanks,” she says quietly.

“Are you very-“

He claps a hand over her mouth, eyes wide as he shakes his head in firm warning. They watch, hearts in their throats, as the girl from Five stumbles across their field of vision. From the way she stares wildly about her Steph thinks she's having trouble with her eyes. Before they can even think of reacting the girl drops to her knees, and when she hits the ground they see the knife in her back. Sam's still hanging onto Steph, but now his face is buried in her shoulder and they're both shaking with his quiet, frightened sobs. 

"It's okay," Steph breathes against his hand, even though it isn't, really, and for one or both of them it never will be again. She absolutely, definitely, does not think of Bucky choking wetly with no one there to even hold his hand.

"It's okay, Sam, there's no one else. It's still just us." 

The cannon sounds, and Steph turns to pull Sam up against her as the whirr of the hovercraft sets pine needles swirling outside. 

They don't speak for a long time, trying to process what they've seen- and what they haven't. There's no doubt that Peggy's advice saved their lives- Steph knows she's not as fragile as Bucky seems to think, but she doesn't like to think about her chances with that guy from Two. They huddle together, Steph firing questions at Sam to distract both of them from the fact that they still have neither weapons nor food, and that starting a fire to stay warm would only give their hiding place away. Sam’s telling her about his sisters- there are three, all younger than he is- when a strange clicking sound draws their attention. They freeze, but then Sam exclaims gleefully and tears away from Steph to retrieve the parachute that has come bearing Peggy's gifts. Sam is speechless with awe at the sight of a portable heating unit that will make all the difference as the temperatures drop overnight. This kind of generosity is almost unheard of for anyone who’s not a Career. 

“Stupid boy,” Steph whispers, knowing too well how Peggy's ended up with so much to work with. She looks up and smiles for her sponsors.

“Thank you.”

Bucky would lay it on thicker, probably, but that’s his thing. Steph lets her eyes drop, playing up her ire the way Peggy seems to think will help them both out.

“Don’t let him make you send everything my way, Ms. Carter, okay? He’ll have to take a coat, at least, right?”

It’s all she can do for him, just now. Assuming he _is_ still out there- but anything else is too much to think about, so Steph grits her teeth and grins at Sam in the faint glow of the heater.

“That’s a lot better, huh?”

It’s almost pitch black outside when the anthem starts up, jarring in the quiet, and they edge towards the mouth of the cave to see how many of their fellow tributes are left. Sam offers her a shaky grin when they jump from the female tribute from 5 to the boy from 8- Bucky’s made it this far, at least. Steph shuts her eyes and sinks to her knees, almost giddy with gratitude. She’s still down there, staring at the ground instead of the images above them, when Sam collapses against her with a desolate moan. His district partner’s face is painted across the artificial sky, frizzy curls spilling across the dark expanse overhead.  Steph pulls him closer, letting him cry. Sam shakes his head in denial of an accusation Steph hasn't made, almost resentful.

“It’s not like you and him. I didn’t even know her before- before we came here.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Steph murmurs, and doesn’t say the rest out loud- Sam’s district partner was his last link to home. They’re still holding onto each other when that insistent clicking starts up again, and they look up to see another silver parachute. This time, Peggy’s sent them broth, rich and warm- and more than enough for two.

Steph drops her head and lets the country watch her cry.

“He’ll come,” Sam says hopefully, but Steph shakes her head- even in broad daylight it would take a feat of intuition to find their hide-away.

“We should sleep,” she says instead of putting her fears into words.

“I’ll take first watch.”

There’s almost no need- they have nothing except a heater and a thermos with which to defend themselves if anyone does stumble across them in the night- but Steph’s never been the kind to get careless just because the odds aren’t exactly in her favour. So she settles in, absently petting Sam’s shoulder as she watches the sliver of moon still visible through the gap between rock walls and tree branches. She counts three hapless kids who’ve probably given in to the elements rather than each other before Sam jerks awake at the last cannon blast and insists on taking his turn.

“I can manage,” he promises earnestly, and looks so keen to be believed that Steph finds she has no choice except to lie back and close her eyes. She only means to rest for a little while, but when she opens her eyes the early morning light is streaming in and Sam is sitting cross-legged, wrapped in a thick blanket and fingering a-

“Where the hell did you get that?”

He drops the knife with a startled hiss, but when he meets her eyes he’s grinning. 

“I told you he’d find us. I gave him the soup from yesterday, but he left us water and-”

Steph’s on her feet and out of the cave before Sam has a chance to finish, but of course Bucky’s long gone.

“You didn't wake me.”

Poor Sam is close to wringing his hands in his anxiety.

“He thinks you don’t want to see him. I told him he was wrong, but he said you need to sleep. He's okay. And he'll come back! I made him promise.”

Steph decides Bucky must have realized that there was no way she could keep up the too-mad-to-talk-to-him charade after _eleven people_ had died since they last saw each other and chosen to duck out before she could give the game away. She nods for Sam’s benefit, her smile growing a little more genuine when the younger boy’s shoulders sag in relief that she isn't angry. The blanket slips, pooling around him, and Steph tilts her head in question. 

“Did he bring that over with him?”

He hadn’t, Sam says- Peggy sent it in the dead of night, and Bucky showed up about 20 minutes later. Which explains a lot, Steph realizes, about the way their mentor paced her gifts.

“Thank you,” she says again, and maybe she's not above playing to their audience if it'll keep her boy safe and close.

“Peggy, everyone- _thank you_."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year everyone! I've been so MIA because between Christmas, new year and birthday I've been quite far away from the right mental space for Hunger Games or vampires or war on Asgard. but…back to work, back to nasty short-term deadlines- back to killing teenagers and researching curses and throwing Loki through black holes! great.  
> (also: in the interests of getting back into this instead of dithering over little things I think I'm going to work on this in twice as many shorter chapters instead of the format I had in mind to start with. so… just Steph today, Bucky's POV on the first few days to follow.)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> there's only so long you can go in the Hunger Games without getting blood on your hands. Unless your name is Steph Rogers or Sam Wilson, apparently.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> getting nasty now : (

Clint Barton knows better than anyone that Peggy doesn’t voluntarily give hugs out of the context of near-death experiences, but knowing’s never stopped him before. He laughs when she swats the back of his head as though he’s still the sixteen-year-old who won his games when she was still very new to mentoring, but obligingly lets her go and turns his attention to the young man Peggy hasn’t taken her eyes off since Clint came in.

“What’s your game with this maybe-tomorrow routine? Everyone’s gagging for it, you know- they’ll still give you everything you ask for if you let him let her see his face for once.”

It’s been four days, he means, and James Barnes is still stalking his girl and her little tagalong from the trees instead of walking hand-in-hand with her like all of Panem is desperate to see. Tasha had bet Clint that Barnes would kill the kid outright when he found out his girl had taken in a stray, but Barnes had only issued one threat. The first night, when Peggy had lured Sam out into the clearing in front of their hide-out so he and James would find each other, Bucky had laughed grimly at the little boy’s frail grasp on a branch almost too heavy to lift.

“You ever hurt my girl, I’ll take your head off myself.”

Sam Wilson had sworn up and down that he’d _never_ repay Steph’s kindness like that, showing more outrage than fear, and after a moment Barnes had smiled approvingly and held out a knife that was almost as long as the younger boy’s forearm.

“Good,” he’d said simply, and let Sam drag him back into the warmth of artificial heat. Since then they’ve developed an odd kind of friendship- Barnes has yet to talk to his fiancée directly, but he never fails to check in with Sam. Stephanie’s adoring shadow updates their self-appointed protector in an earnest whisper, glaring reproachfully when Barnes refuses to wake Stephanie for another night in a row. “Maybe tomorrow,” he says in a choked murmur Clint doesn’t think is faked, and little Sam wins hearts and minds every night by insisting that the older boy stay long enough to get warm before he resumes his lonely vigil. Barnes is damn good with a rifle for a kid who’d probably never held a gun before Peggy put one in his hands- he hasn’t killed anyone yet, but Clint’s seen him run three people off without giving his position away, and four days into the competition Stephanie and Sam have yet to encounter anyone at all except each other.

“I bet you’re glad you let him go for the gun. I really thought you’d have told him to-”

“Of course I told the idiot to run.”

Career tributes know one thing well before they enter the arena: once the competition begins, they have an hour, if that, to prove their mettle. The outer districts talk about the bloodbath like the Careers are doing something excessive, even unnecessary, but the fact is that sponsors pay for what they want to see, and anyone who can’t bring something to the table will be left behind. Ever since Peggy herself failed to make the cut only to hang in there on her own long enough to win anyway, the Careers have made a point of hunting down their own stragglers before they go after the others.

“I told him to stay well away. Clint, I told them both exactly how it is with them.”

She never says ‘with us.’ Clint can only imagine what it must have cost her to talk about that in any kind of detail. He scowls, feeling suddenly protective.

“But, what, he didn’t believe you?”

Peggy shakes her head. There’s a softness in her eyes that Clint hasn’t seen in years.

“He was ready to run until your boy broke that little girl’s spine.”

Clint cringes even though he’s known for years that there’s no room for guilt in the Hunger Games. He’s had very little to do with training Creed- the kid struck Clint as halfway to feral, so he just slapped him on the back, promised that he’d send good red meat when he could, and went back to watching Tasha teach Mystique to throw knives. He remembers Creed’s first kill all too clearly, but he’s sure James Barnes was nowhere in sight.

“Wasn’t he on the other side of the-?”

A sweeping wave of his arms indicates the Cornucopia. He was, Peggy admits, but he’d already worked out that Steph would be directly across the field from him, and she thinks he must have wanted to be sure before he headed that way. Dropping into a crouch gave James a view right through the Cornucopia’s twin openings, and Peggy had seen the colour leave his face as Creed left his first victim for dead without so much as a shudder. Steph had been mere inches away, her foundling keening in horror even as they ran for it, and Peggy had known she wouldn’t like what was coming next.

“That was awesome, though. I don’t think I’ve ever met a teenager as patient as this kid.”

Instead of making a run for it like Clint would have done- would do if he were there now, probably- Barnes had crept into the Cornucopia, found what he wanted, and settled in until the Careers cleared the field for the hovercrafts.

“It was all luck, Clint.”

Peggy’s still a little shaken, he realises- or very shaken, since she doesn’t even grumble when he risks another quick hug.

“He’s fine. And he’s got a mother-”

“Do you think I won’t wash your mouth out because you’re mentoring now?”

“He’s got a nice shiny rifle,” Clint amends, grinning, but of course that’s when the screaming starts. Watching from the Tribute Centre, Clint and Peggy already know that it’s the girl from Seven- the Career Pack has cornered her and her district partner, and it’s not going well for them. Barnes, of course, has no way to know this- his eyes snap up and to the left, but Stephanie and Sam are still safe in the isolation he guards so jealously. To Clint’s surprise, the kid heads towards the noise anyway. Peggy looks more resigned than anything else.

“Bloody hero complex.”

She really likes this kid, Clint realises with a pang of the only thing worse than jealousy- pity. It’s bad enough to get attached when you honestly believe your tribute can win- in this case the whole country knows he doesn’t even want to. There’s not much he can say, though, so he just stays as close as Peggy will let him, watching Barnes pick his way along the dense protrusion of branches he seems to regard as a personal boardwalk. It’s better than looking at the other screen, where the boy from Seven is being ripped apart as his partner screams in wordless, agonised, fear and anger.

“Shut up,” the toady boy from One hisses, jabbing at her with a knife.

“You’re next, Girl Seven.”

Creed’s leer unnerves even his mentor.

“Shame we had to leave Mystique to guard the haul. She likes-”

The great beast of a tribute, more than a head taller than Clint and at least twice as powerful, drops without another word. His companion barely has time to stare uncomprehendingly at the bloodspray on his jacket before he falls too, the knife in his hand hitting the ground with a harmless thump. The camera holds on James Barnes, and Clint feels his breath catch at the boy’s perfectly blank expression. It’s not the ruthlessness of the Careers at all, and it’s definitely not the cowed compliance of the Peacekeepers. James Barnes is a man on a mission, and Clint’s not sure there’s anyone in Panem who’ll be able to stop him. Two more shots take out the pair from Four before they realise they’re under attack. Clint’s jaw must be inches from the floor by the time Peggy’s young man drops carefully to the ground. The girl from Seven- Edie Sawyer, Remy’s voiceover reminds them helpfully- closes her eyes when he bends to retrieve the knife, but all James does is cut her free. Edie staggers away as soon as she can, eyes on the gun at his back.

“It’s okay,” Peggy’s tribute assures her.

“I won’t hurt you. We need to get out of here before the rest of them wonder what’s going on.”

He’s right- the cameras cut to Mystique demanding aloud where Creed and the others might have found another two victims. Edie, however, has more immediate concerns.

“I’m not going anywhere with _you_.”

James runs an agitated hand through his hair.

“Look, we have-”

She laughs, dry and bitter, at his wounded look.

“There’s no ‘we’. I’m not your ally.”

She lunges, and she must be stronger than she looks- or the shock of what Barnes has just done is catching up with him- because she manages to snatch the knife before Peggy’s tribute gets out of range.

“Go on,” the girl from Seven hisses, jerking her chin at his rifle.

“Do it or get out of here. I’m not playing for third place, Romeo.”

That seems fair enough to Clint; Barnes seems to agree.

“I’m real sorry about Guy,” he says quietly, then turns his back on her and disappears the way he came. Edie risks a gory kiss to her district partner’s forehead before she, too, retreats into the woods. Guy Smith, LeBeau’s voiceover intones soberly, would have been seventeen years old in a matter of weeks.

“I have to go,” Clint realises as the cameras cut to Mystique stalking into the woods. He’s been so occupied with James Barnes that he’s forgotten he just lost one of his own tributes, and that the other is about to do something insane.

“Tasha’s going to kill me if I make her do the interviews on her own.”

Peggy nods, distracted- she’s watching Stephanie plead with Bucky to come out from wherever he is, fighting tears of frustration because five cannons in quick succession have put her on edge, and she’s sick to death of taking Sam’s word for it that he hasn’t gone and got himself killed. On the other screen showing District Six, James stumbles Stephwards with heavy, flagging steps. Watching the kid realise he's a killer now brings back all kinds of memories Clint would prefer not to think about.

“He’ll be okay,” he says for Peggy's sake.

“We got through, and we didn’t have someone out there to hang onto us.”

His mentor smiles as much as she can, and then Clint really does have to hightail it back to his own floor. They give the expected interviews, speaking calmly about Creed's death and apologetically about the brutal way Mystique took her anger out on the Careers’ unfortunate and largely unwilling sentry from Three. This may be a first in the history of the Hunger Games, Remy tells them in an uncharacteristically ambivalent tone: it’s not even day five, and their female tribute is the last Career left alive.

“It’s that kid,” Clint concludes helplessly.

“Carter’s golden boy- what a champ, seriously.”

It sets Tasha up perfectly to talk their girl’s skills up with the right measure of defensive mentorly pride, but Clint’s never seen anything like the crowd that night. A few years ago some kid from Nine killed the girl from Four, and the inner districts pooled their resources to "see justice done." Justice, in the Hunger Games.This year, Barnes has taken on the whole alliance- and even sponsors Clint knows put their early bets on Creed are practically chanting his name in their euphoria.

When they get back to the Tribute Centre, though, they find that Panem's favourite isn’t having the best time of it. Clint would have put money on Barnes breaking his long silence- he knows he’d have wanted to talk to anyone at all after _that_ \- but Barnes stands on his own in the clearing as the anthem plays. His face hardly moves, but the eyes that have half the women in the Capitol in fits say it all. He’s calm enough as his victims' faces fill the sky- but then they show Guy Smith as he had been at the Opening Ceremony, smooth-faced and smiling, and James crumples. He doesn’t even react to the parachute that appears less than a minute later; Tasha’s impatient huff at Peggy’s sentimentality turns into a look of grudging admiration as she realizes why it was really sent.

“James!”

He freezes, still on his knees, with a look of such abject terror on his face that Clint almost laughs. Stephanie’s eyes are full of compassionate tears.

“Bucky, honey. Did they-?”

“Don’t,” he whispers. His voice is a broken echo of itself, but the words are clear.

“Just get out of here, okay?”

“What? No!”

She comes closer, ignoring his wretched flinch completely, and kneels beside him as her hands find his shoulders.

“James, of course not.”

He closes his eyes like he can make her disappear by refusing to acknowledge her.

“You don’t know what I did. Steph, I-”

There are honest-to-goodness screams from the square outside as Stephanie Rogers cuts off his protests with a desperate, searing kiss.

“Five days,” she whispers afterwards, one hand in his hair and the other still on his shoulder.

“Seventeen bloody cannons.”

He hasn’t spoken yet- he just watches her face like he’ll live or die based on her judgment. Stephanie doesn’t make him wait.

“Bucky, I don’t care what you did, as long as it got you back here.”

He doesn’t believe her, Clint thinks, but he lets her urge him to his feet and coax him back into their cave. She talks him out of the heavy jacket she’d asked for on his behalf, and the boy who took out the Careers stands like a statue as Stephanie runs the wet edge of their blanket over his face and then his hands.

“Sam can keep an eye on things,” she promises, meaning they should get some rest. James’ lips turn up a little at Sam's eager agreement, but he looks heartbreakingly unsure.

“I should-”

“Sleep,” Stephanie insists.

“Here, with me, like it's supposed to be.”

Sam chokes adorably, and even in the low light of the heat lamp they can see James flush. He relents when Stephanie lies down first and beckons for him to join her; Clint swears he can hear the city sigh contentedly when Stephanie settles into his arms like she belongs there.

“You’re just fine,” she whispers into his chest.

“You’re with me, Bucky, okay?”

Tasha looks up from the knife she’s been coating carefully in nightlock juice. Whatever she sees on Clint’s face makes her purse her lips disdainfully.

“You do know Osborne will already have told Stark he wants one or both of them dead by morning, don’t you?”

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam begins to realise how much fun being a third wheel isn't.

It’s been snowing on and off throughout the Games, enough to keep them tripping and slipping even when the ground’s not slick with someone else’s blood but never enough to stick. The night Steph drags her Bucky into their cave, though, the Gamemakers seem to get tired of holding back. Sam watches the rapidly forming snowbanks rise, powerless to do anything except wonder if Steph’s insistence on rationing everything they’ve had to eat will be enough to save them if they get shut in.

The last thing Sam wants to do is eavesdrop, but there’s precious little to distract him from the painful-sounding gasps with which James keeps shuddering awake. In his peripheral vision, he sees Steph sit up and draw her partner into another warm embrace. The wind drowns out James’s rasping whisper, but Steph’s voice is strong and clear.

“You’re not. You’d never say that if I’d had to do it.”

Sam’s been around Steph long enough to make out the smile in her voice as she answers the complaint he can’t quite hear.

“That’s okay. I’ll look after you for a bit, all right? It’s gotta be my turn by now.”

He murmurs discontentedly, but lets Steph bully him into lying down again.

“Slave driver,” Sam hears as the wind dies down. He’s not sure he’s ever heard someone sound so affectionate in real life. Stephanie’s laugher is soft and sweet.

“You love it,” she says coyly, but James doesn’t want to play that game.

“I love _you_ ,” he corrects her, urgent in a way Sam doesn’t understand.

“More than anything, Steph Rogers.”

“Bucky,” Steph answers, just his name. Sam would bet everything he’s ever had that if he turns around he’ll find them kissing. It doesn’t help as much as it should- not twenty minutes later James is heaving miserably again, and Steph is rubbing his back with increasingly frantic tenderness. At first, Sam assumes it's an emotional reaction- it’s not so hard to figure out who killed _all but one of the Careers_ \- but it gets worse and worse with time. When the morning light hits James’s greying face Sam realizes he’s seen those symptoms before.

“Did he get bit by a spider?”

James shivers and jerks; it takes them a moment to realize he’s trying to turn over. Sam hovers nearby in case Steph wants his help, but she does fine on her own, promising that she’ll do it, sweetheart, if he’ll only tell her what he needs. His shoulder, James manages to whisper, has been burning for hours- he thought maybe he scraped it sliding down a tree or something. Steph frowns at the jacket she’s laid out next to him, which isn’t so much as scuffed. She peels back his T-shirt- Sam reaches out a careful hand, wincing at the clammy heat of the skin exposed around the angry red welt that comes into view.

“Green wanderer,” he says quietly. They’re tiny things, easy enough to miss.

“We have ‘em at home. There’s some leaves you can put on it so it won’t hurt as bad.”

It doesn’t hurt that much, James says; Stephanie thinks the problem is the rest of it. There’s an antidote, Sam is pretty sure, but it’s not something you can mix up out in the woods.

Steph’s eyes light up at the familiar clicking of a parachute, but it’s only a scrap of paper. She realizes what that means right as Sam summarises the note, so they speak more or less in unison.

“They’ll have it at the feast.”

James’s hand tightens weakly on Steph’s.

“Don’t go.”

It would be more convincing, maybe, if he didn’t follow his request with more piteous retching. He’s obviously trying to rein it in, not least so he can tell her they'll be better off waiting it out, but by the end of the episode James is white-lipped and Steph is very close to tears. She sighs, laying the hand he’s not still clutching against his neck like a cold compress.

“I think I have to, J.”

“Can’t last forever,” he mutters, apparently meaning his symptoms; Steph bends to kiss his fevered brow.

“Tell her, Wilson.”

Sam doesn’t know what James thinks he can say to sway either of them either way.

“It’s the Hunger Games,” Steph retorts, so quietly that Sam almost misses it. It’s probably not a real Green Wanderer, he thinks she means: it could have been made specifically for them, in which case the symptoms will last as long and get as serious as the puppeteers want them to. And what they want right now, obviously, is for Steph and Sam to leave the safety of their nest without their self-declared bodyguard.

“Relax, Bucky, okay? I can do this.”

Bucky’s eyes slide towards the rifle not quite out of reach next to them.

“You know how to load that thing?”

Steph nods; the teasing laughter is back in her voice and in her smile, but there’s a hardness to the set of her jaw that Panem’s never seen before.

“What d’you think Ms. Carter had me doing in training, needlepoint?”

James smiles, shaky but adoring.

“You’d be plenty dangerous with a needle.”

“Yeah, so imagine me with this giant thing.”

“Won’t have to imagine if you show me.”

Steph stares at him, incredulous, but when he doesn’t laugh or take it back she eases him gently to the ground before reaching for the rifle. She takes it apart methodically, naming the parts as she goes, and then reassembles it as neatly as if she’d never touched it and raises it in one fluid motion to mime taking down a target on the other side of the cave.

“Happy now?”

His voice is a disconsolate growl.

“No. I should be-”

“Going with me, I know, I know. You’re like a broken record, Bucky.”

She catches his hand before it clenches into a frustrated fist. Sam looks away, awkward and unheeded outside the bubble that is Steph’s world when she and her James are together.

“I’ll be fine. You make sure I have someone to come back to, okay?”

He doesn’t answer, but raises her hand to his lips so he can kiss her knuckles like a prince from the stories Sam’s gran still tells his sisters sometimes.

“C’mon,” he mutters anxiously, a little choked up because he’s been trying so hard not to think about home and family, which got a lot harder when Steph brought the whole of hers back here.

“It says we should go now.”

She gets to her feet, but frowns at the boy on the floor. James is bleary-eyed and breathing unevenly- Sam thinks he’s working pretty hard to keep the heaving in check until they’re gone.

“You’ll be okay on your own? Maybe we should leave the knife.”

Sam’s hand clenches on the weapon- not his, exactly, but in some abstract way all he has. James protests right away, though, raising his head so he can look at Sam. It’s much less intimidating than the first time, especially because he looks like he’s going to throw up if he so much as blinks.

“I’ll look out for her,” he volunteers before James has to ask; Stephanie rolls her eyes.

“You boys and your side deals.”

“Be careful,” James mutters, and Steph laughs again.

“Thanks, J. If you hadn’t said that we’da gone out there skipping and singing.”

“Sarcastic wretch.”

She drops to her knees to push his hair out of his eyes, so tender it makes Sam’s eyes sting.

“You love that too.”

James shakes his head, still not up to that kind of game.

“Don’t you dare let them hurt you, Stephanie.”

She does kiss him then, quick as lightning, and not at all like goodbye.

“They probably won’t even recognize me,” she says lightly.

“Since you haven’t let anyone within a hundred yards of us since, what, Day Two? We’ll be back in a little bit- don’t do anything crazy while I’m gone.”

He nods, too tired to do much more than that. Steph seems to decide that it’ll have to be enough, because she nods too, then shoulders the gun that’s nearly as long as Sam’s torso and turns to him with a grin that looks more real than put-on.

“I guess we’re up at last, huh.”

They set off at a trot, but they’re barely past the clearing where everything seems to happen when Stephanie stops abruptly.

“You stay here, okay?”

“No! I’m going to help you.”

“’Course you’re helping. I need you to stay here and make sure no one gets too close, okay?”

Sam doesn’t know which would be worse: Steph leaving him in the woods because she thinks he’ll be a liability at the fight, or Steph asking him in all seriousness to stay behind and protect the guy Sam _knows_ is going to run out of patience with him sooner rather than later.

“He meant I should go with you, though.”

He thinks that might sway her, but Steph just huffs, torn between amusement and impatience.

“Since when is Bucky Barnes the boss of you?”

“I’m not doing this for _him_.”

It comes on a touch too strong- Steph’s eyes narrow even as she glances back reflexively as if saying his name could somehow draw the others closer.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

The hurt in her voice is too much.

“He’s going to kill me,” Sam cries, almost relieved to have it out there between them- Steph looks like the thought has never so much as crossed her mind, but it’s been wearing on Sam’s nerves since the first time he looked James Barnes in the eye.

“It’s got to be him, right?”

Steph won’t let anyone else hurt him, he means, but if James manages what he’s come out here to do eventually there won’t _be_ anyone else. It’s one thing to know that- it’s another to let his only real ally risk everything for the guy he’s staying behind to protect, who is also, not coincidentally, _the guy who’s going to kill him._

 “Sam-”

“I’m going with you,” he says firmly.

“We should hurry, they don’t like it when you make them wait.”

It’s a good point and she knows it. They head for the Cornucopia in the grip of a stony, frigid silence which isn’t at all like kind they’ve shared before.

“I’m sorry,” Sam mutters.

“It’s just- we can’t all win together, can we?”

She doesn’t answer, but maybe that’s fair. Sam wouldn’t know what to say, either.  

Back in the Capitol, deep in the heart of the Tribute Centre, almost all eyes are on the wide-angle overhead view that shows everyone who’s coming to the feast making their way to the centre of the arena. Tony Stark, however, finds his attention drawn time and again to the miserable figure of the boy from Six, whimpering pathetically as he levers himself painfully to his knees.

“Sorry, kid.”

That spider was a cruel touch, he knows- but it’s nothing on what has to follow. He’s already reaching for the dial when Pepper’s hand closes over his.

“Please don’t do this.”

Tony sighs, keeping his voice very low as he admits something that could easily cost him his job- or more than that.

“I’m not exactly dancing to my own tune here.”

His fingers move, and the temperature in the arena begins to climb. The kids at the feast probably won't notice right away, of course, but unless James Barnes is paying very close attention he'll find out when the melting snow makes contact with Carter's electric heater.

"It's cruel, Tony." 

Not for the first time, Tony wonders whether the tributes from Six are the only people in this whole damned circus who know which way is up. He shrugs.

"It's the Hunger Games, Pepper."


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky's day continues to suck; Steph's goes better than expected, and then worse.

Bucky still hasn’t convinced his legs to support the rest of him without any help from the walls or floor when a long shadow falls across the wall in front of him. He doesn’t even have time to tense for the inevitable before he’s lifted clean off his aching, unsteady feet. The expert hunter from Twelve, grins, sickeningly close to salivating in his excitement. For a horrible moment, before he remembers the hovercrafts, Bucky wonders whether Kraven- who scored a ten at their trials by killing and skinning a doe before the Capitol judges had finished exclaiming at its size-has been surviving on the flesh of his victims.

“Guess what I got this morning?”

It’s clever, really: giving the hunter whatever he needed to find their cave- a compass, maybe, or even just directions- would have ensured that the Gamemakers got their spectacle even if Steph had decided not to play by their damn rules. Which, apparently, is what they expected- knowing this doesn’t do Bucky any good, exactly, but it’s interesting. Kraven strides out of the cave with Bucky still dangling like a ragdoll in his grip; he can’t possibly realize that he’s just saved his victim’s life by coming to finish him off. His teeth rattle in his head as the hunter shakes him roughly.

“You think this is a joke, Six?”

Bucky shakes his head, just a little, hoping it looks hurt and scared enough that if this is his last play the people who were prepared to bet on him will stick with Steph as long as she needs them.

“Least you left her the heater,” he mutters. Kraven, soaked to the skin and even more than previously wild after however many nights exposed to the worst of the arena’s artificial elements, goes completely rigid.

“Heater?”

Bucky’s eyes go wide.

“No! I- I mean, we-”

The hunter flings him to the ground hard enough to jar every already aching bone in his body.

“ _Don’t_ try anything, Six.”

He couldn’t if he wanted to, but Kraven’s not taking any chances. A savage blow takes the air from his lungs- Bucky has just about enough time to hope that Steph’s doing better than he is before the darkness sweeps even that thought from his mind.

* * *

 

By Steph’s count, there should be four other people at the Cornucopia when she and Sam arrive. Instead, they find the girl from Two already locked in violent combat with another girl- from Five or Nine, Steph thinks, but it’s hard to be sure since she hasn’t seen her since before the Games began. A safe distance away, Edie Sawyer is watching the fight with interest, legs dangling off the ‘banqueting’ table. When she realizes the other two have arrived she waves almost cheerily. In her other hand rests a small package clearly marked with a six. 

“Is it _Romeo_ that’s sick? I thought for sure this was for you.”

Steph lines up the shot, watching Edie through the rifle’s sights.

“Hand it over.”

Sam’s eyes are huge, but the girl from Seven keeps talking in the same easy tone.

“Poor sucker must be nearly dead if he let you come out here without him.”

For a moment, Steph considers shooting the stupid girl just for suggesting it.

“I’ll do it if I have to.”

Edie cocks her head.

“Will you? He won’t like that much.”

She’s right, of course. It’s almost scary how little Steph cares.

“He’s not here, is he?”

For a long moment she thinks Edie’s going to make her do it, but then the other girl sighs and tosses the package over.

“Take it, then.”

Sam catches it one-handed, still looking between them uncertainly. Edie sighs like she can’t believe she has to _explain_ on top of everything else.

“It’s no good to me, _I’m_ not sick- and I’m not dumb enough to get between everyone’s darling and his sponsors.”

Her voice is bitter, and too knowing by half.

“I just figured if he came out here for you I could get him to trade me for something.”

When she stands, the knife Bucky left with her glints at her waist. Steph’s fingers tighten where they were just starting to relax, but Edie shakes her head.

“He did right by me and Guy. Next time we meet you both better remember I don’t owe you nothing.”

She turns, not at all concerned about the fact that Steph now has a rifle pointed at her back, and saunters away as if she’s on some kind of Capitol runway instead of a dirt track leading nowhere. Steph glances back towards the other two, but Mystique and Dazzler are still locked together in the kind of fight that can only end with another awful cannon blast. She should take the shot, probably- one less to worry about would be a help to all three of them- but she’s not going to gun someone down from behind.

“C’mon,” Steph mutters- not disappointed, of course not, but a little bewildered by how things have gone. She’d been most worried about the tracker Bucky’s had to scare off from their corner of the woods a couple of times, but that guy hasn’t so much as shown up.

“We should get back there before he tries to start a fire or something.”

Maybe she should have expected it after his outburst from before, but Steph still feels completely blindsided when Sam shakes his head.

“I don’t think I should go back with you.”

“What? Of course you should. How’re you gonna-”

He doesn’t even wait to find out whether Steph is thinking of food, shelter, or not getting killed by the crazy girl with the knives.

“I’m not, am I? Not out here and not with you.”

Helpless, frustrated tears are already gathering in Sam’s eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters, staring at the ground.

“I know you want to help, but we _can’t_ win all together.”

A cannon fires, nowhere near the pair fighting in front of the Cornucopia. Sam raises his head automatically at the sound, and Steph feels her blood chill when his eyes widen. She turns in time to see the hovercraft dip below the trees, right where they left her James alone, unarmed, and barely mobile.

She doesn’t take the time to wonder whether Sam’s got it in him to stab her in the back so he can win without them- she just takes off running, faster than she ever has, as if they’ll let her change the past if she only gets there fast enough.

She finds the cave that has been their refuge empty- the floor is bone dry, completely empty of water despite the fact that rapidly melting snow has turned the clearing outside into something quite close to a swamp. They must have had to do this artificially, Steph realizes, to get to the-

Her eyes fall on the heater that almost certainly saved her life that first day. Before she knows what she’s doing she’s picked it up and flung it against a wall hard enough to feel the burn all the way up her arm. It shatters into mess, and Steph hisses in surprise when a piece of wire catches her across the cheek. Her hand comes away from her face bloody, and suddenly all she can think is that she’s the only one who doesn’t know what it was like for him. All of Panem must know how it happened- whether he knew it was coming and tried to get away or if he was too sick to do more than wait and watch. The awful keening sound she makes instead of his name doesn’t sound like it can be human, and nearly drowns out the only sound Steph is longing for more desperately than the cannon announcing her own death.

“Steph.”

Weak and cracked, his voice sounds like it did when they were much younger. It hardly matters- Steph hurls herself at him with almost the same force she used to destroy the heater that hasn’t, apparently, been his death after all. James, even shakier now than when she left him, laughs breathlessly but keeps his hold on her as they tumble to the ground.

“Wasn’t me,” he says unnecessarily; Steph would laugh at him if she could remember how. Bucky’s still shivering with that awful fever, but now half his face also looks like someone stepped on it, and hard. Steph lets her fingers trace the path from his temple to his ear, brushing his hair back as if it matters at all how he wears it.

“That guy from Twelve found you.”

It’s not a question, but Bucky nods. He sounds almost amused, in a borderline hysterical way. Miners from Twelve, he guesses, are much less aware of electricity- and of how it works with water- than the boys who run the rails come rain or shine. Steph shudders in his arms, another sob tearing its way past her defences at the thought of how differently things could have gone. Only James Barnes could possibly outplay the Gamemakers and trap a trained hunter in one move, and all for the privilege of sticking around so he can die too soon another time. Suddenly, Steph’s crying so hard she can’t stop or breathe or think. Bucky makes a quiet, dismayed sound and gathers her closer, but he doesn’t ask what she’s thinking or try to hush her- they just stay like that, sick and sad and hardly up to breathing in and out, but as close together as they can be with all their clothes still on, and all of Panem watching.

“Don’t make me go back there,” she whispers when she can. His arms tighten around her, but he doesn’t interrupt.

“Bucky, I don’t want to do _any_ of this without you.”

“There you are,” Bucky says suddenly; Steph lifts her eyes and finds him smiling at Sam with real warmth.

“I thought maybe-”

Sam shakes his head, relaxing a little in response to Bucky’s genuine relief on his behalf. Instead of explaining why he wasn’t with Steph, he holds out the little package she hasn’t even thought about since the cannon sounded.

“I’ve got your medicine.”

Steph laughs raggedly, pressing her lips to Bucky’s too-white cheek so she won’t have to try and articulate the sheer stupidity of going through all this melodrama over that damn thing only to forget it even exists at the first sign of trouble. She reaches out, and when Sam’s fingers brush hers as he passes it over Steph wraps her fingers around his wrist and pulls him into a quick, grateful hug.

“Thank you,” she whispers, kissing his forehead as if he were a tiny child instead of nearly teenage.

“We’ll figure this out, Sam, okay?”

He nods, not quite reluctant, but his eyes skitter away from hers as he presses the little box into her hands.

“You shouldn’t make him wait anymore.”

Sam’s description had them all expecting an ointment, but Steph opens the box to reveal a syringe of neon orange liquid. Bucky winces, as much at the colour as at the needle, but offers her his arm with a resigned grin. Steph administers it as gently as she can, not at all sure what to expect; maybe because it’s a Gamemaker drug for a Gamemaker bug, Bucky’s fever breaks within the time it takes for them to thank Peggy and their sponsors for sending it. It’s too good to be true, really, but then there’s so little about these Games that have any connection to reality. Suddenly, Steph finds herself in tears again.

“Hey,” Bucky murmurs, already sliding his fingers into her hair. He’s so much better- his hands are steady now, and his touch is strong and sure.

“I’m okay, Steph.”

Even in the best-case scenario that won’t be true for long. It’s like Sam said, kind of- Bucky can give her what he thinks she needs or what she really needs, but not both. As soon as she has the thought Steph knows what they have to do.

“Don’t be mad,” she whispers. Maybe the sponsors would like another twist in their tale, but Steph thinks she’ll die if this ends with hurt and bitterness between them.

“Bucky, please don’t be angry with me.”

“’Course I won’t,” he promises, and just from his voice she knows he’s already guessed what she’s thinking. A rueful smile tugs at his lips.

“Someone should tell that girl Sawyer- third place isn’t so bad.”

Steph shakes her head, reaching up to brush his hair back again.

“You came for second. You’ll get second.”

Bucky’s smile turns challenging.

“You want us to go together, you mean?”

A whole lifetime ago, when they were thirteen or fourteen and still in the community home back in Six, Bucky had blown into the girls’ dorm flushed and disoriented, babbling almost too fast to follow about girls and boys and liking but not just liking and maybe more than liking. A good few minutes in, Steph had regained her senses long enough to cut him off with that very question, and Bucky had smiled gratefully and taken her hand as he nodded. He does that again now, reaching for the hand that isn’t still playing with his hair and tangling their fingers together when Steph nods.

“That’s how it’s supposed to be,” she reminds him as if he hasn’t known that all his life. His hand on her face is so gentle it makes her want to cry again, but Steph finds herself smiling as he catches another renegade teardrop before it can wash salt into the cut on her cheek.

“I’m in,” he says softly.

“Long’s you’re sure that’s what you want I’m with you ‘til we’re done here.”

Steph nods, and for the first time since Emma Frost called her name in the city square it feels like the air she’s breathing actually fills her lungs. Bucky nods too, then leans in and presses his lips to hers almost formally, like he’s signing the papers that will make their contract binding. He’s still holding Steph’s hand tight when he turns around and grins at Sam.

“What do you think, Wilson? You ready to be the youngest Victor Panem’s ever had?”

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the reason it has taken me so long to update this is that I really, really, really, didn't want to kill Sam.

It’s been at least a couple hours since the Capitol’s favourites told Sam that they want him to sit back and let them win the Hunger Games for him, and he’s still waiting to feel relieved. Grateful, sure- but then he’s been grateful since Steph snatched him out of that bloodbath at the beginning and James chose not to kill him for it. Can they possibly have known since _then_ that this is where they were heading? Sam’s hand clenches in his pocket, around the precious gift he hasn’t dared to look at since he got it.

“I’m gonna go see if he needs help,” he announces. Stephanie looks curious, but of course she can’t see any harm in it.

“Don’t stay out too long,” she murmurs, sounding so much like Sam’s grandmother that it’s honestly hard to tell whether he wants to laugh or cry.

“We’ll be home in time for supper,” he promises, and her surprised laughter follows him into the clearing. James looks up as he gets closer- Sam’s pretty quiet, but somehow he always seems to know.

“Everything okay?”

“You don’t have to help me,” Sam blurts out. If James is surprised, it doesn’t show on his face. Sam presses on- he hadn’t realized that was what he wanted to say, but now he’s started it sounds like the truth.

“I know you want her to win. You _volunteered_ so she would win.”

“So she _could_ win _,”_ James corrects him sharply.

“I’d never _make_ her do anything she didn’t want to do.”

“You _volunteered_ ,” Sam cries again, as if James might not remember. He can’t imagine ever putting himself forward like that, let alone for someone else-

“Just to help. It’s her life, Wilson; I guess that means it’s her call.”

He says it like it’s the easiest thing in the world. Sam frowns.

“What about _your_ life?”

James shakes his head.

“There’s nothing for me, without her.”

The awful thing is how he doesn’t even have to think about it. He knows he’s going to die, probably tomorrow, and it doesn’t even make his voice shake.

“Aren’t you _scared_?”

Sam forces himself not to look away- he’s the one who asked. James smiles, just a little.

“Less now than when we were your age.”

That’s two different admissions at once, and it’s enough to stop their conversation for a good long while. Sam’s hand closes, again, on the small pouch he’s still got hidden safely away. He should tell James about this, he thinks- except that's when the klaxons blare.

* * *

 

In the apartment reserved for District Four’s mentors, Thor cringes at the sound. Loki glances over, so Thor gives him an unsteady kind of smile.

“Brave lad,” he murmurs. Loki watches his face with interest, but doesn’t ask whether he means Barnes or Wilson.

“I like him,” he decides.

“I think he’s going to die.”

Thor doesn’t ask who Loki means either. When Stark announces the rule change, Thor’s brother throws back his head and laughs until he cries. Two floors above them, Peggy Carter loads her revolver, just to feel the weight of it, and wonders what President Osborne will have to say if she kills his head Gamemaker in cold blood.

* * *

 

When Stark’s voice tells them that the Gamemakers are changing the rules so that two tributes can win- any two, as long as it’s one boy and one girl- Sam sinks wordlessly into the grass. James stands stock-still, his expression as unreadable as ever, and watches him.

“That girl from Seven was right,” Sam wheezes. There are tears in his eyes now, but he’s not going to let them fall. If he’s going to die today he’ll do it like a man.

“They want you to win so much they’re changing the rules for you.”

He can’t help but smile, just a little.

“Both together, like you said.”

He’s not expecting James to grab him by both shoulders. He freezes, wondering if the older boy’s going to strangle him instead of using the gun. Instead, James waits until Sam turns defiant eyes on him to pull him into a hug that is both hideously awkward and wholly reassuring.

“We already promised,” he says softly.

“You gotta go home, Sam.”

Something settles in Sam’s gut. It is relief, but not at the thought of staying alive- he’s happy, he realizes, to know that he was right about the kids from Six. Suddenly, he sees a tiny part of everything James has had to bear right from the beginning.

“Are you going to kill her?”

Somehow he’s never even thought of that until now. James’s spine straightens so quickly Sam can hear his bones shift. For a moment, he doesn’t think James has an answer for him.

“If that’s what she wants.”

Of course that’s what he’d say. Sam swallows rapidly a couple of times, then asks the only other question on his mind.

“What if she wants you both to go home?”

James looks stern now, even for him.

“That sound like my Steph to you?”

Sam shakes his head, because it doesn’t, and James rewards him with one of those quick, sharp smiles.

“Good man. I promise if she looks even a little disappointed I'll bring you back out here and shoot you myself.” 

It's a mark of how their relationship has changed that Sam finds himself giggling a little instead of gasping in terror. James notices, and looks a little pleased as he winks. Steph is perfectly calm by the time they get back to her, but even Sam can see that her eyes are red and puffy. For an awful moment he wonders if she’s disappointed, but when she sees them both together she smiles widely, takes the gun from her partner’s hands, and kisses him quite hard.  

“All my life you’ve been my hero, you know that?”

He mutters fake-resentfully, acting like he’s shoving her away out of annoyance but really just giving her room to come up behind him and put her arms around him that way instead. All through the evening Sam keeps waiting for someone to say something else, but that, apparently, is it. The Capitol has given them a way home, at his expense, and they’re not even going to talk about it.

“Try to get some sleep, okay?”

Steph smiles quite sweetly, not even very sadly.

“You’re gonna have such a day tomorrow, Sam.”

He makes an effort, mostly because Steph wants him to, but it’s hard to sleep when his thoughts are racing like they never have before. He thinks about his sisters, and how happy they will be- surprised, of course, but thrilled. He thinks about the district- extra supplies he has no business denying them when they’re being so freely offered. He thinks about James, steady as the mountains as he talks about going to his death to make sure Steph gets a say in hers. Speaking of which-

Sam’s eyes pop open, almost against his will, at the sound of Steph’s voice.

“What’re you doing?”

“I’m okay,” James assures her; that’s not exactly an answer. Stephanie sits up, which with her back to Sam means it’s safe for him to watch without wondering if they’ll mind. James stands with his back to them, staring out at nothing in particular.

“I was just-  it doesn’t matter.”

Even when he was sick, he did a better job of sounding like he meant it. Stephanie sighs, gets to her feet and goes over to him. She takes his hand, smiling encouragingly when he turns to take the other one as well, drawing her closer.

“Tell me.”

Whatever he sees in her face convinces him to do just that.

“Steph, I don’t know if I can-“

“Bucky, no!”

She drags him to her almost violently, pulling him close as her fingers curl in his hair as if she means to protect him from his own thoughts.

“Stupid boy, of course I’d never ask you to do that.”

It’s only when Sam sees the tears on James’s face, shining in the pale, artificial moonlight, that he realizes this is about what he asked James earlier. His heart clenches, again; Stephanie keeps stroking her hero’s hair, guiding him to rest his head on her shoulder as he heaves a shuddering sigh.

“Don't, Bucky, okay? We’ll figure it out when we get that far.”

He nods, and Sam can see it in their silhouettes when they both relax.

“I’m not sorry,” James confesses suddenly, sounding plenty apologetic for someone who says he's not asking for forgiveness. There’s a long silence, strange but not strained, then Stephanie nods.

“I’m glad.”

“Are you?”

He doesn’t sound like he believes her, but he makes no move to get out of her way when she presses close to kiss him again.

“Remember what you said, on that train and after? I’m glad they haven’t changed you, either.”

He smiles at last.

“Will you take your goddamn ring back, then? Swear to god, every time I have to run or jump I think I'm gonna lose it.”

She laughs breathily as she nods- Sam thinks maybe she’s crying now. James reaches into the inner pocket of his jacket- which makes Sam’s fingers itch to check on his own- and produces the ring all of Panem knows should be on Steph’s right hand.

“I would give you so more than this if I could, Steph Rogers.”

She doesn’t go for his lips again, like Sam would have guessed. Instead, Stephanie turns so James can put his arms around her from behind, resting her head on his shoulder and closing her hands over his in front of her.

“There’s nothing on this earth I’ve ever wanted more than this, James Barnes.”

Her ring glints in the dark, bright and true like the life they don’t seem to think they deserve, and Sam knows two things with striking clarity. The first is that he isn’t going to win the Hunger Games; the second is that he’s way more at peace with that than he could ever have imagined before he met the tributes from District Six.

Moving gingerly, knowing that they’ll try to stop him if they figure out what he’s doing, Sam takes out the packet his mentor sent him at the Feast. At the time he’d been deeply hurt that Nick thought there was nothing that could help him except nightlock- but then they’d said they’d let him win and Sam had thought maybe he could help them find a way to go together, like they wanted, without hurting anyone. Now, though- the more he thinks about it, the surer Sam becomes that Edie Sawyer had a point. This is the only ending that makes any kind of sense- for him _or_ for them. It’s his life, he thinks, more proud than defiant. That must mean it’s at least a little bit his choice.

Very carefully, he tips two berries into his palm. It’s more than he needs, but one alone just looks sad.

“Thank you,” Sam breathes, thinking of his mentor, and of James, and of Stephanie Rogers maybe most of all- but also of his gran, and of his sisters, and of everyone at home whom he’s choosing not to see again. They'll understand, he thinks, if they ever really knew him, and if not maybe now's as good a time as any for them to learn.

“I’m sorry. Thank you.”

The strange thing, or one of them, is that he isn’t even scared anymore.

Sam swallows, and his Games are over before the crashing of a cannon way too close to home jars James and Stephanie out of their quiet vigil.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the Games end, not quite as anyone expects.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> since the Games end here more people die horribly : (

Carter’s tributes are dragged from their uneasy rest by the dull pounding that announces Sam Wilson’s death. In the District Two suite, Natasha rolls her eyes when Stephanie reaches for her partner as if to check with her own hands that he’s still alive even though he’s already wide awake and staring over her shoulder.

“Stupid kid, why would you-”

Barton stands as Stephanie turns, reaching the door before the girl from Six has time to fly across her meager dwelling and clutch vainly at her temporary ward. He hesitates when Natasha gets up and comes to stand by the lift with him: he knows better than anyone why Tasha and Peggy Carter never speak if they can help it.

“You know I’m-”

“Yes.”

The main reason they haven’t killed each other yet, Natasha sometimes thinks, is that Barton has a particular gift for knowing when it’s safe to push her and when he should just let her be. He moves aside without a word, allowing her to step into the elevator before he does. By the time they’ve convinced the security team on level six to let them through, Stark has decided to add some tension to his carefully crafted scene of pathos: Edie Sawyer has the nation’s attention, muttering darkly to herself as she cuts her way through the underbrush towards the sound of beating blades. Carter is silent as the grave, watching her tributes on one screen and then both as Stark has his people cut back to James Barnes warily eyeing the hovercraft descending outside.

“I think we have to go, hon.”

Stephanie shakes her head. Her eyes are still streaming, but her face is calm.

“We can’t just leave him.”

Carter snorts a reluctant laugh as James drags frustrated fingers through his hair.

“No, I guess we can’t. Here- let me help, okay?”

He waits for the girl to nod before lifting Wilson’s too-still form out of her arms. They move together into the clearing, neither saying a word until James lays the boy on the ground. Stephanie kneels to wrap her jacket around the little boy, kissing his forehead as all of Panem has seen her do several times before.

“Thank you,” she whispers.

“Sam, I’m-“

She chokes on his name, turning away for a moment. Her partner says nothing, but drapes his own jacket over her shoulders and leaves one hand resting there as if to physically help bear the burden of her loss.

“I’m sorry,” Stephanie tries again.

“I’m so sorry we couldn’t do more.”

There’s no official rule saying the tributes can’t be present when the hovercrafts descend, so the pair from Six have no reason not to stay where they are until the body has been retrieved. The hush over the crowd in the square outside the Tribute Centre lingers until Stephanie gets to her feet shakily. Stark has his editors cut from one camera to another so that the audience turns with her, leaving the country suddenly face to face with the pure anger on their favourite’s handsome face.

“Stupid kid,” he spits again, surprising even Stephanie with the depth of his resentment. Next to Natasha, Barton sighs in ragged sympathy as the tribute’s eyes grow wet.

“Steph, I don’t get why he’d-“

“He did it for us.”

She touches his face with something quite like reverence.

"For me, I mean, maybe.”

“But _why_? I _told_ him-“

For the second time, Stephanie delights most of the nation by cutting her partner off with a kiss so tender it makes Natasha’s palms itch for her knives.

“He made it so you’ve won already. As long as we get you to the end you’ll be their Victor no matter who goes home with you.”

The jubilant outcry that jars Natasha from her visions of blood suggests that the Capitol approves of this development. It’s not quite true- possibly the girl from Seven would be willing to share her victory, but if Mystique makes it to the final two there will only be one survivor. Stark lets the shot linger long enough to show the boy’s screaming fans his dawning smile, but the public feed cuts away to Edie Sawyer, making steady progress towards them, before Barnes tells his partner firmly that he’ll win with her or not at all, and that’s the end of it. When Barton grabs his startled mentor in a congratulatory hug, Natasha decides enough is enough.

“You can’t honestly think they’ll both get out alive.”

He certainly seems to, if his wounded expression is anything to go by. Natasha breathes out slowly through her nose, wondering how anyone who has been through the Hunger Games and _won_ , not to mention mentoring a number of other tributes to victory, can still be so naïve.

“They’re obviously setting it up so one of them will have to kill the other at the end.”

“They won’t do it,” Barton says at once, completely confident.

“There’s no way, Tasha.”

They’ve never talked about Matthew, and if Natasha has her way they never will, but it’s hard not to hear an implied comparison.

“She might surprise you,” she says coldly. She’s still addressing Barton, but finds herself seeking out Carter’s cool, vaguely resigned gaze.

“I did, didn’t I?”

There will never be a good time for _that_ conversation, so it’s really just as well that Emma Frost comes fluttering in before either Barton or Carter tries to answer.

“We'll have them home by tomorrow,” she assures Peggy with a startling degree of sincerity for her. She doesn’t have to tell any of them what that means- those mentors with tributes still in the Games are more than encouraged to watch the finale at one of the public viewings. They move without further discussion. Myles Allred, the harried, nervous-looking mentor from Seven, has just enough time to raise a hand in tentative greeting before his tribute bursts through the trees. For a moment, the three teenagers in the clearing just stare at each other. Edie Sawyer is the first to find her tongue.

“You really did kill the little boy, huh.”

She sounds almost disappointed.

“I thought maybe you were gonna-”

She frowns at Stephanie’s pale cheeks and clenched jaw.

“You’re not _still_ mad at him? He’s doing it all for you, you ungratef-”

Carter starts forward as if she can stop her tribute from lunging at her accuser.

“How dare you-”

“Steph!”

James gets between the two girls a second before the knife in Sawyer’s hand flashes; both he and Edie flinch, but it does little more than rip through his standard-issue T-shirt. If he’d been fighting any one of the Careers both James and Stephanie would be dead already, but the girl from Seven is no more comfortable a killer than Barnes is, and only slightly more experienced at it than Stephanie. She hesitates too long, giving James time to meet her eyes.

“You could help us,” he suggests.

“You know we’re the easier mark here.”

Their opponent laughs bitterly.

“You’re still offering me third, Romeo.”

“Or the win,” James says lightly.

“This one says she’s stayin’ with me, either way.”

He’s a sharp one, at least: he knows perfectly well that the other girl is aware of how outmatched she will be trying to take on the last surviving Career on her own. After a moment, Sawyer lowers her knife.

“Alright. But as soon as-”

A terrible howl cuts her off. The crowd outside the Tribute Centre buzzes with excitement- as a Gamemaker, Tony Stark has a particular imagination for pure imagination. He hasn’t seemed inclined to stretch those muscles this time, but everyone is watching as Barnes steps away from the other two so he can raise the rifle. Stephanie glances at the other girl uncertainly.

“Did you see anything?”

Sawyer shakes her head helplessly.

“It was all-”

“They’re getting closer,” James murmurs without speculating on what “they” are.

“I guess they want us to finish this,” Stephanie suggests.

“C’mon, we should-”

The creatures that explode onto the scene are everything the Capitol has learnt to expect from Tony Stark. In the main they’re very like jaguars, sleek and dark and deadly. They’re about twice that size, though, and if anyone knows Stark they’ll also be twice as fast. Even more unsettling, they have very, very soulful eyes.

“Guy,” the girl from Six rasps, drawn forward like a moth to a flame. Next to her, Stephanie stumbles backwards, clutching at her boy.

“Sam,” she whispers.

“Bucky, they’re his-”

“They’re not,” he snaps, but they can all see that the possibility has shaken him.

“No time, Steph, we gotta go. C’mon, run!”

It jars Edie out of her stupor too; all three take off running, tripping and stumbling back the way Sawyer came. She leads the way, James bringing up the rear with rifle in hand. When Edie falls, Stephanie grabs her by the elbow and all but hauls her to her feet, ignoring the other tribute’s disbelieving look.

“Don’t stop. C’mon, we have to go.”

She goes against her own advice when James, not ten paces behind them, cries out in terror. Both girls turn- Stephanie pales at the sight of one of Stark’s predators pinning her boy while the other prepares to lunge.

“James, gimme the-”

He throws the rifle left-handed. The creature holding him down doesn’t appreciate the sudden movement; the boy screams as its awful jaws clamp down on his arm.

There is a great, gunpowdered thud, followed by a moment of bafflement as the crowd wonders in hushed tones whether the boy could have died- a poisoned bite, perhaps. The second gunshot reassures them, Stark’s people cutting from the writhing boy to his partner, her grip on the rifle every bit as certain as his.

“Help me,” she orders briskly, already moving to shove at the dead beast crushing her partner.

“I can’t,” Edie Sawyer whispers, her eyes fixed on the ravaged mess that is the boy’s arm.

“I’m sorry, I- I-”

They hear another awful howl, distant but distinct.

“I’m sorry,” Sawyer says again before she flees.

“Goddamn coward,” Stephanie hisses.

“I’ve got you, James, okay?”

His face is chalky, his breathing already uneven.

“You should just-”

“Shut up,” she orders.

“Just shut up, stupid boy.”

She pulls him into a quick, grateful embrace before she studies his arm.

“It’s all right,” she promises.

“They’ll fix it after we win, right?”

He smiles, trying to be encouraging.

“Sure, Steph.”

She does her best, sobbing repentantly as she puts the ugly makeshift tourniquet in place.

“It’s important,” she whispers, carding his hair in apology.

“It’ll help, Buck.”

“I know,” he promises raggedly, kissing her neck.

“Help me up? We gotta get out of here before that thing catches up with us.”

They make it out of the forest and stand for a moment, blinking at the gleaming cornucopia as if they’ve forgotten it ever existed. Stephanie looks around, curiously.

“D’you think she-”

“Yes,” Mystique announces, stepping out of her hiding place with Sawyer’s knife in hand.

“Not that it did her much good.”

The other girl is collapsed on the ground behind her with another, slimmer knife buried in her abdomen.  

The girl from Two is exactly as fast and deadly as her mentor has been promising all Games long, but she’s never had to deal with an opponent so resigned to his own death. With terrifying firmness of purpose, James takes a knife to the shoulder to give Stephanie time to raise the gun. The crowd in the square tenses- no one was expecting sweet Stephanie Rogers to make the final kill. Mystique laughs bitterly.

“You don’t have it in you.”

She attacks so quickly that the boy has hardly raised his knife before she’s disarmed him, taking him to the ground with a vicious kick to his mangled arm. In a moment, she has her knife pressed firmly to his throat.

“I’ll take him with me, if I’m wrong.”

It’s clear on the boy’s face that he’s willing to count that as the victory he came for, but Stephanie lowers her weapon.

“You don’t have to do that. You can both go home.”

James’s eyes widen- clearly, he hasn't thought of this. He throws an accusing look Stephanie’s way only to gasp as Mystique flings him to the ground to hurl herself at Stephanie.

“I’m not going to win because you let me, you sanctimonious bitch. It doesn’t mean a damn thing if you just hand it over.”

She doesn’t attack right away- something about Stephanie’s offer has unsettled her far more than the other girl could have anticipated.

“I was supposed to, you know. This was my year, they all said it.”

Stephanie stands where she is, rifle still in hand, plainly confused about what’s going on.

“I don’t-”

“Of course you don’t. Who the hell are you? No one, from nowhere, but then your fucking boyfriend _volunteered for you_ , and now they only want one ending.”

“He keeps his promises."

The other girl snorts.

“You think that makes him some kind of hero? He’s just good television. And it’s _your_ fault.”

She shakes her head, still advancing. Stephanie takes an uncertain step backwards, her eyes darting towards James, struggling to his feet behind Mystique.

“They only want your ending,” she repeats,

“But they’re not gonna get it. They’re not gonna-”

She hits the ground, her own knife in her neck. When the cannon sounds, the nation realizes what seemed wrong about the other finalist’s death.

“Thinks she owns that trick,” Edie Sawyer grumbles. There’s blood on her teeth as she smiles. 

“How’s that for good television?”

Stephanie helps James stagger over. Edie glances between them, concerned.

“Don’t be mad’t him anymore.”

“I promise.”

She catches James's eye.

“Don’t say I never did anything for you.”

He nods wordlessly; his eyes are almost as glassy as hers, but he still smirks a little when the other girl scowls suddenly.

“I guess I do get goddamn third.”

“Second,” James corrects her gently.

“Great,” she tries to drawl, but then her expression softens.

“Good for you, Romeo. Really.”

“Thanks, Edie.”

She reaches up to touch his face.

“You know my name.”

“Sure I do.”

She closes her eyes.

“You knew Guy’s too. You were nice to him, at that parade.”

Both James and Stephanie nod. Edie opens her eyes again.

“You won’t forget us?”

“I promise,” James murmurs, echoing his partner. The cannon echoes overhead.

“James,” Stephanie says softly, guiding him away.

“Your arm-”

“Doesn’t matter." 

His voice is slurred and uneven. 

“’s not for long now, huh.”

He doesn’t seem as happy about that as the rest of the country is, and Stephanie is the first to notice.

“What, James?”

He hasn’t looked this painfully resigned since Stephanie was reaped.

“Shouldn’t there be horns'n stuff, if they’re gonna let us both go home?”

There should- they never wait more than five seconds after the final cannon to announce the Victor. Stephanie shakes her head, rigid with the force of her angry denial.

“No! No, no, no.”

“It’s all right. Ms Carter’ll look after you, she said.”

His good hand brushes her cheek, so gentle that several people burst into noisy tears.

“Sweet girl. My Victor who never hurt anyone at all.”

He’s fading fast without the adrenaline surge that must have been keeping him going.

“You can’t leave me,” Stephanie whispers, holding him close.

“James, you promised-”

He kisses her neck. There are tears in his eyes, too.

“I’m sorry, Stephie.”

“James,” she mutters as he stops moving.

“James, honey, please-”

He doesn’t answer, but the Capitol exhales with Stephanie as she finds her partner’s unsteady pulse.

“I think you have time to fix this,” she announces unexpectedly.

“If I’m wrong- I hope you have a rule change for when there’s no victors.”

She’s crying freely as she lays her sweetheart out on the ground, reaching into her back pocket before she moves to lie with him.

“You gotta tell him, Peggy, okay?”

She kisses his forehead rather than his unresponding lips.

“It’s not your fault. You did everything right.”

Even Natasha feels the prick of tears as Stephanie lays her head on the young man’s chest.

“I guess I just outplayed you, fair’n square.”

People scream as they realise what she’s doing- the tiny pouch in her hand is unmistakable.

“District 11,” she smiles warmly.

“Thank you so much for your Sam Wilson. I really wish we coulda sent him home, but I guess it was his right, huh. It’s not for nothing, okay- he chose your Victor this year.”

The mentors suddenly find themselves onscreen, the feed dividing to show Nick Fury’s quiet emotion as well as Carter sobbing openly as Stephanie raises a fragile hand to her lips.

“You tell him I love him,” she murmurs, almost pleading.

“Peggy, don’t ever let him think it wasn’t enough.”

Carter presses her face into Barton’s shoulder just as Stark’s voice startles the viewers as much as the last conscious tribute in the Arena.

“Stop! Wait, stop- just hold on a minute, will you? What the hell are you doing, Rogers? Did I say one word about taking it back?”

Stephanie freezes at her name, utterly out of her depth as the promised fanfare rings out belatedly.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Stark intones in a voice Natasha has learnt to hate, “I give you the Victors of the 74th annual Hunger Games: Stephanie Rogers and James Barnes of District Six.”

Barton throws his arms around their mentor as her knees go week; onscreen, Stephanie collapses over her partner with a sob of exhausted, bewildered relief. The final shot of the winter arena is of the two new Victors huddled together in the melting, blood-marked snow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bit more still to go: victory ceremony, consequences of seriously annoying President Osborne, that kind of thing.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Hunger Games never end with the final kill.

“James?”

She can hear him, gasping and struggling like he’s been running for miles, but when Stephanie opens her eyes it isn’t her poor sweetheart in the room with her at all.

“Miss Rogers,” Norman Osborne says pleasantly, as matter-of-fact as if she should have expected to find the country’s sole ruler watching her sleep.

“My congratulations on your victory.”

Stephanie just about remembers to nod before she presses the only point she cares about.

“Where’s-”

“Bucky?”

She’ll only get an answer if she smiles and looks grateful, so Stephanie does her best not to react to the chill that slithers down her spine at the unnatural sound of that name on someone else’s lips. President Osborne nods towards the far wall.

“He’s had the best care we could give him.”

Stephanie doesn’t understand at first; after a week in the Arena her body is barely used to the sensation of being warm all over, and she hasn’t quite re-learnt the concept of observation windows. When she does realize what he’s trying to tell her, Stephanie can’t sit up fast enough. A moment later, she stumbles to her feet and staggers towards the one-way glass.

“No! James, no.”

He doesn’t look as close to literally losing his life as he did when she saw him last, but Stephanie isn’t sure this can be called an improvement. The room they have him in is identical to hers, cool and clean, but they have him strapped to the bed as if they think he’ll try to break out.

“Why would they-”

“I’m not sure we’ve ever had so reluctant a Victor.”

She wouldn’t know, of course, but for her own part Steph’s never seen anyone look quite so much like a living ghost. James’s eyes are bloodshot and unseeing, and there are salt tracks on his face. None of it makes the least amount of sense, either, unless-

“You haven’t told him. He thinks I-”

“Yes.”

Osborne smiles pleasantly.

“I’m very much looking forward to your reunion at the Ceremony.”

For a moment, it’s all Stephanie can do to stay on her feet and keep her face still. She’s not _so_ naïve as to think they’d let her get away with turning on the President in anger.

“Did you want that girl from Two to win?”

The President’s perfectly tailored jacket shimmers in the light as he shrugs.

“Do you honestly think she would have placed where she did if I cared at all about her performance?”

Stephanie shakes her head, fighting tears of pure frustration.

“I don’t understand why you’re punishing him.”

The President’s vaguely reptilian stare is almost enough to make her shiver.

“If I had wanted to punish him I would have let you go through with it.”

It’s impossible to argue with that while James is right there in front of them, already losing his mind because of what he thinks she’s done.

“You’re angry with me,” she realises. That makes a little more sense, at least: Bucky never did anything except what he said he would right from the start, but Steph probably took everyone _except_ Bucky by surprise from the moment she grabbed Sam's hand.

“Because I didn't want him to let me win?”

The hiss of a door on the other side of the glass distracts them both. James seems to recognize Emma, or else he doesn’t have it in him to care what happens next; either way, he stands quite still, neither cooperating nor resisting as she coaxes him into fancier clothes than he or Steph would ever have seen at home.

“I can’t,” he whispers. Emma gives a little gasp, eyes filling with tears she’ll never let fall while they could ruin her makeup, and pulls James into a hug.

“You’ll be fine, darling. One foot in front of the other, remember to breathe, and try to smile if you can.”

He shakes his head, still staring straight ahead. His voice is much more matter-of-fact than frightened or hurt.

“If they make me watch her do it I’ll die.”

In the other room, the president turns to catch Stephanie’s eye.

“I think he means that,” he tells her calmly.

“It seems only fair to tell you that the next time you try to force my hand I intend to test that theory.”

“I wasn’t trying to force anything,” Stephanie protests.

“We look after each other, that’s- that’s just what we do.”

The president nods once.

“It’s entirely because I believe that that either of you is alive.”

No part of this encounter has made the least amount of sense. Stephanie frowns.

“If you don’t think we’re-”

“Three separate tributes were prepared to die for him to win,” the president says baldly before Steph can object.

“That’s power, Stephanie, and there are those who will look to take advantage of it.”

Like you, she thinks, but manages not to say.

“He won’t care. He just wants to go home.”

Osborne smiles that sharp, cold smile.

“I trust you’ll see that it stays that way. I think we both know he’ll take his lead from you.”   

His implication is that other people will as well, and that it will fall to her to prove their collective loyalty.

“I just want him safe,” Steph murmurs, meaning it with all her heart. For a moment it feels like she’s staring down the jungle cats of Stark’s creation again, but then Osborne nods briskly.

“Then we should be able to help each other,” he announces.

“Think of it this way: you have nothing to fear from me as long as you give your sponsors what they paid for.”

Gratitude, Steph thinks he means, and the final chapter of a narrative that sees James Barnes defy all the odds to keep his bride safe and see her safely through.

“But…?”

The president’s smile widens into something shark-like, as cruel as his eyes.

“But if you’re ever tempted to take what’s mine, my dear, I hope you’ll remember how easy it will be for me to break what’s yours.”

It’s all she can do to nod. Osborne leaves, apparently satisfied, and Steph just has time to collapse back onto her cot before Emma is on hand, dry-eyed and urgent in her haste, to lace Stephanie into a fitted bodice and flowing skirt.

“Lovely,” the escort says, sounding quite like she means it. There’s something almost sweet in the way she takes Stephanie’s elbow as though she thinks she’ll have to show her the way back to Remy’s terrible studio.

“Let’s not make him wait any longer than we have to, shall we?”  


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the Victors from District Six; too many people keeping secrets

Remy LeBeau knows full well that the reason he’s kept his job as long as he has is that the higher-ups value his ability to take whatever shivering wreck the Games throw his way and make the kid look like a winner in this final interview. Some years it’s easy: the Careers typically have almost as much practice as Remy himself at plastering a public face over whatever it is they really think. Natasha Romanova, he’ll never forget, smiled quite sweetly even as she fingered the knife only Remy and her trainer could see.  Other years, Remy finds himself wondering why he doesn’t just throw in the towel and live out his days as some socialite’s kept man. This year, the Gamemakers’ final twist leaves him clenching his fists in the pockets of his signature coat and reminding himself once, twice, three times that there’ll be hell to pay if he gives Stark a black eye at the presidential reception.

“But what do you _mean,_  he doesn’t know?”

Stark shrugs, then moves automatically to smooth away the creases in his perfectly tailored jacket. The Games had never ended with more than one Victor before, and James Barnes has no reason to assume anyone’s made an exception for him.

“That’s cruel even for you.”

The Gamemaker smiles broadly.

“You can thank me for your ratings later. Break a leg, LeBeau- I really mean that. I do.”

It goes exactly as well as Remy expects, and worse than that: for the first time since Loki’s brother had to lead him onstage by the hand, this year’s Victor takes the stage with his mentor close by his side. The boy is as gaunt as when his adoring public saw him last, almost visibly fading under the strain of it all. His fans don’t seem to mind- the worried hush that was the studio audience’s first reaction gives way to an indecipherable cacophony of support as soon as they guess what’s in store for the evening. A good portion of them dissolve in tears as soon as he tries and fails to find a smile for them, but the rest are so tense with anticipation of the coming reunion that several people have already fainted before Carter and her charge take their seats across from Remy. James seems to be working hard to pay attention as the host speaks, but his eyes flick to the screen behind them three times before he turns to his mentor with a tremor in his voice.

“I can’t do this. Please, I-”

Carter says nothing, but gathers the boy close, glaring at Remy over his head.

“Get on with it,” she barks, and Remy nods because there’s really nothing for it except to forge ahead and hope the young man’s heart won’t give out during the live broadcast. Remy smiles brightly, trying not to notice the way James shudders in his mentor’s arms.

“Let’s relive the moment, shall we?”

The crowd falls silent, eager for his reaction to the moment no one ever thought they’d live to see. James, who knows nothing about that yet, freezes mid-heave when Stephanie’s voice fills the studio. Very slowly, as though against his own will, the boy raises his eyes to watch her one last time.

“You tell him I love him. Peggy, don’t ever let him think it wasn’t enough.”

“No,” her partner breathes, almost inaudible even with Stark’s customised gear and the studio’s pin-drop silence.

“No, please, don’t-“

He jumps at Stark’s voice, harsh and loud.

“Stop! Wait, stop- just hold on a minute, will you? What the hell are you doing, Rogers? Did I say one word about taking it back?”

It seems to Remy that the whole studio inhales with James.

_“What?”_

They watch him drag himself upright as the hovercraft descends onscreen.

“Is this for real?”

Their Victor takes two jerky steps away from his mentor.

“You knew about this.”

Carter’s eyes are pleading, but Remy’s whole career rests on his ability to decide when to let the moment unfold and when to intervene. He raises one eyebrow at a gaggle of women clutching each other in excitement from the front row.

“I think we’ve kept Miss Rogers waiting long enough, don’t you?”

The crowd completely drowns out whatever James’s mentor thinks she needs to tell him. Remy grins at his audience; it’s not half as fake as the last time.

“Ladies and gentlemen, may I present- together at last- your Victors from District Six.”

Stephanie, ephemeral in cream and sapphire, tears across the stage as soon as she wrenches free of her handlers. In one of Stark’s moments of pure brilliance, the Gamemaker has supplied footage from their Reaping to form the backdrop for the victors’ reunion. As the tribute onscreen collapses against her protector in a tempest of hopeless anger, the girl who won the Hunger Games reaches her partner just as James stumbles to his knees, overwhelmed by too complete a reversal of everything he knows.

“Bucky, Bucky-”

She wraps herself around him like a second skin, barely hampered by the gauzy skirt and unfamiliar heels slowing her down.

“I’m sorry. They wouldn’t let me-”

She falls silent, suddenly unsure, when he raises his head. For a moment, they just stare at each other.

“Steph. My Stephanie.”

She just has time to smile before he drags her close, pressing his face to her neck like he’s trying to breathe in the very fact of her. Stephanie smiles, twisting to kiss his temple the way they’ve seen him do to her several times before.

“I’ve got you,” she promises, dropping her hands from his shoulders to his waist as she leans in.

“You’re just fine, J.”

Unexpectedly, the boy laughs.

“Stealing my act,” he murmurs, and then grabs Stephanie by the shoulder and drags her into a fierce, possessive kiss. The audience, of course, lose their minds completely- for several long minutes, there’s nothing for Remy to do except alternate between smiling indulgently at the kids holding each other together in front of him and pulling mostly mock-exasperated faces at their screaming fans. Eventually, though, the show must go on. Carter helps Remy coax the Victors into the seat across from him before slipping away to take her own seat offstage.

“Well,” their host grins.

“I’m almost sure we’ve never seen anything like _that_ on this show.”

Stephanie blushes very prettily, ducking her head as James fights a grin. It’s the first time he’s managed a smile since they brought him onstage, and sets the crowd off all over again.

After _that_ explosive start,the highlights reel can only be an anti-climax. James closes his eyes, visibly sickened, when they make him watch his own early succession of kills; Stephanie grabs her partner's hand and refuses to look away. Once or twice Remy sees James wonder why Edie Sawyer has been erased so completely from the narrative of their win, but he never says a word. Stephanie seems unable to say a word about her friendship with the little boy from Eleven, but her partner smiles sadly and assures Remy that Wilson was a good kid who deserved better than he got. His voice drops as he catches Stephanie’s eye.

“I’m real sorry we couldn’t-“

“Hush. You did everything you came for, understand?”

“Well said, Miss Rogers.”

President Osborne steps out of the shadows wearing one of his more paternal smiles. Remy is still wondering whether he’ll ever get to call any of the shots on his own programme when the president offers James his hand, speaking quite kindly.

“I’m sure the people are very glad to see you on your feet again.”

“Thank you,” James murmurs, his voice breaking as his grip on Stephanie’s hand tightens.

“Thank you so much.”

The audience agrees with their young hero, crying out their own gratitude and approval for Osborne’s last-minute clemency on Stephanie’s behalf. The president nods, totally benevolent.

“How could we fail to reward such a display of loyalty?”

He turns to Stephanie herself with a convincingly sorrowful frown.    

“I’m only sorry we weren’t able to return him to you in one piece.”

Both Victors freeze. Another shocked silence overtakes the room as Stephanie follows the President’s gaze towards her partner’s gloved hands, one of which is now clenched in a tense, unhappy fist.

“They didn’t tell you. Steph, I-“

“No,” she whispers, already tugging at his glove. The audience gives a collective wail at the gleam of metal they glimpse, just briefly, before Stephanie collapses against her partner with a sob.

“It’s okay,” he tries to say, but she’s much too busy blaming herself.  

“I’m sorry. I’m so- it was that stupid-“

“Cat that tried to eat me?”

That’s not what she means and he knows it, but Stark’s people oblige him with a replay of the attack that, it seems, has cost their Victor his arm. Stephanie doesn’t stop crying _or_ trying to apologise until her partner kisses her cheek and touches his forehead to hers so she can’t look away.

“You saved my life, okay? A couple times, even. What’s one arm?”

She’s still clutching at his artificial hand; with careful concentration, James makes the fingers twitch enough to almost, almost, close over Stephanie's.

“I’ll get the hang of it,” he promises, and she raises the metal digits to her lips to seal their deal. President Osborne, smiling magnanimously, declares that his Victors have been through enough without having to watch the final few days of their ordeal. Stephanie raises her head, eyes sharp, but nods when James murmurs heartfelt thanks from both of them.

The coronation is picture-perfect: they stand shoulder to shoulder, the very image of solidarity in crisis, and smile uncertainly, mostly at each other, while Osborne speaks of them in vaunted imagery few have the cultural references to grasp. Afterwards, they help each other off the stage, still hand in metal hand. As Remy runs through his closing monologue, thanking sponsors and so on, he sees Carter stand up to share a genuinely moving first reunion with her female Victor.

James, included by proximity, looks away without a word.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> aftermath: another train

“What are you doing?”

Stephanie freezes in place on the carriage floor, still hugging her knees to her chest. James’s voice is curious rather than accusing, but it’s his expression- that awful mask of calm resignation- that makes her want to cry. Again.

“I was just- I wanted to-“

In their old life, James would already have pulled her into a hug. In the life that will be theirs instead, he just watches, waiting for Steph to express the thought she hasn’t dared to complete even in her own head. Instead of trying, she lets her eyes linger on the silvery digits of his new arm.

“Is it still hurting you?”

He looks away, rolling his right shoulder as if to remind himself that he’s still got one arm that’s really his.

“It’s fine.”

It’s not, though- Steph’s spent three days watching the way his movements get more laboured while the  colour drains slowly from his face until Emma carves a stopping-place into the endless whirl of photographs, autographs, and sound-bytes to press strange-coloured tablets into his hand.

“I’m sorry,” Steph whispers, shoving back a wave of nauseous envy- it’s not _fair_ that the only one of them he can still bear to talk to in his own real voice is _Emma Frost_. James shakes his head, faintly impatient.

“Didn’t I say it wasn’t-“

“Not about your arm.”

She breathes in raggedly, desperate to talk to him without a sea of strangers pressing too close, smiling too widely, asking too many personal questions.

“Not just about that. I mean I’m sorry for everything.”

He nods once, accepting that. It doesn’t look like he cares either way.

“Bucky, _please_ -“

His eyes snap to hers, just for a second, before he turns bodily to face the window rather than have to look at her.  

“Please don’t call me that.”

“What?”

Steph scrambles to her feet, not sure yet whether the instinct that propels her is fight or flight. He’s been so quiet since the Coronation- tense with hurt and anger, but not at her. He won’t even look at Peggy, but with Steph he’s only ever been kind, even if it’s closer to the way he talked to Sam in the arena than anything else. He just needs time, Emma has said about forty times in two days, time and space. Steph’s not sure she knows how to give him the kind of space that goes with giving up the name that’s been on her lips since she could talk. James sighs, running his hand through his hair and leaving half of it standing on end.

“It’s not your fault. I know they must have your family, or they threatened you with worse, or something, but- I can’t, okay?”

Steph just stares, turning every word over to see how she might have misunderstood. Bucky- James- he explains in a voice leeched of all feeling.

“I thought, at first, that they might have just let us go- but then he didn’t want us to watch the rest of it. They never said one word about you for days and days, and then there you were, and he wouldn’t let us watch the bits you wouldn’t know anything about.”  

She was trying to save him, Steph thinks helplessly. She did what she thought she had to to _help_ him, and the result is that they hurt him so badly he thinks it’s more likely they _gave someone else her face_ than that he could possibly get what he wants more than anything.

“James! Of course that’s not what- why would they even-“

James shrugs; his face is as blank as Steph has ever seen it. He has yet to look away from the tracks racing by alongside their train. The brokenness in his eyes abates, just a little- its replacement isn’t hope, but something chillingly like relief.

“You wouldn’t,” Steph gasps, desperate to reach for him but not at all sure he’ll appreciate it.

“It’s not the worst way to go.”  

He sounds so calm.

“They say it doesn’t even hurt much, except for a second. Makes a bloody mess, but that’s all after you’re-“

Steph throws herself at him, dragging him backwards as if she thinks he’s going to do it right away by jumping out the window.

“No! No, you can’t, I won’t let you-“

“It’s all right.”

He looks just like he did in the Arena, when she was waiting for the rescue he knew wasn't going to come.

“I wouldn’t while they might take it out on you.”

Steph thinks she’d swallow nightlock right there, a dozen times over, if it would wipe the self-loathing from his eyes.

“There’s been enough people killed to get us here, don’t you think?”

His eyes are still so kind, so carefully gentle, but he really does think he’s looking at a stranger.

“It’s okay. Whatever they have on you- I won’t tell anyone. We’ll make this work."

There’s nothing, _nothing_ , Steph can think of to say to that. They stay right where they are, her hand on his arm, his eyes on the tracks, until she realises what she has to do.

“You let Jack say he’s your best friend, but it was always Gary. You still miss him all the time.”

They almost never talk about the older boy who all but raised them until the day he disappeared from the Community Home without a word or forwarding address. Certainly they’ve never mentioned him in any context relating to the Hunger Games. James goes still, his expression calculating. When he doesn’t say anything Steph nods fractionally and then presses on.

“You hate dressing up for the winter dances, but you let us make you go because you know I like them, even though I think you also know I only like them because you do it just for me. The first time we kissed was at one of those.”

She smiles at the fragile hope in his poor red-rimmed eyes.

“The first time we _really_ kissed was last year, when you got back from that stupid trip to Two, and they wouldn’t stop going on about all the ways you coulda died. When we were 15 you gave Bart Mitchell a black eye for saying any sensible person woulda drowned a runt like me before they wasted hard-earned bread on such a lost cause. I still don’t know why they thrashed you both when he was the one who-“

Steph falters, then falls silent, as James raises his good hand to stop the tears slipping down her cheek. She’s only going to have this one shot. Very slowly, as if she’s scared he’ll bolt if she startles him, Steph raises her hand to close it carefully over his wrist. His mother’s ring glints on her finger, making her smile.

“It’s all a lie, you know, this engagement broken for the Games. We weren’t ever engaged, not really, ‘cos I still haven’t told you ‘yes’ yet.”

It wasn’t that long ago- the childhood betrothal the Capitol seem to love so well is pure fiction, spun by some journalist while they were fighting for their lives. There was no charming lakeside proposal, either- as far as Steph knows there isn’t even a lake in District Six. It was just any ordinary day until James pressed his mother’s ring into Steph’s hands and said he knew it was too early to ask, but he knew what he’d want after they’d aged out, and he saw no reason not to let her know. Steph had kissed him deeply, then kept her arms around him as she said only slightly tearfully that _one_ of them had to be sensible, but of course, if he’d ask again in a year and a bit, _then_ they’d be engaged. She’d been so afraid he would be angry, or- worse than that- hurt, but he’d just smiled the smile that meant he knew he’d wear her down eventually and assured her that his offer was a standing one.

“I tried to make you take it back, but you said-“

“It’s gonna be yours or scrap, so you might as well keep it safe until you’re ready.”

His voice cracks a couple of times, shuddering with more than the force of the train. He wants to believe her, Steph thinks, but given how cavalier they've been with his sanity so far he’s still wondering whether she can be real at all.

“I was ready,” she confesses in a rush.

“I think maybe I’ve been ready my whole life. I just- I don’t ever want to make you a promise I can’t keep.”

Finally, _finally,_ her James smiles at her, not like the hero Peggy and Emma helped him craft for the Arena, but like the ridiculous boy she’s known all her life.

“Is that you sayin’ ‘yes’, or what?”

And then they’re kissing, just like that, and it’s nothing like their fraught reunion in front of everyone whose fault it was that they’d ever been separated in the first place.

“Steph,” James murmurs, and Stephanie is abruptly, painfully aware that it’s the first time he’s so much as said her name since he convinced himself that getting her back was too good to be true.

“I love you,” she says, which isn’t quite an answer, unless it is, and they find that it’s a different thing entirely, and somehow even more intimate, for her to press her lips to the corner of his mouth, just so, while his eyes are wide with hope and fixed on hers.   

“We’re really okay, you know. You did it, just like you said.”

“Not just,” he murmurs, the shadows already back in his eyes.

“I’m so sorry, Stephanie.”

 For very nearly leaving her to just the fate that had him talking about electrocution and posthumous dismemberment like that was a better option. Steph gathers him closer, tangling her fingers in his hair so he can’t get away.

“I’ll forgive you if you forgive me,” she decides, knowing he’ll understand that she means it’s long since done.

“You just stay right here and hang onto me until we get through, okay?”

“’s what we do,” he agrees, and then he tilts his head at her the way he says she does when she’s being coy.

“You still haven’t said yes, Steph.”

“Shut up,” she orders, and kisses him again.

“Maybe I won’t. You don’t know.”

He tugs her towards the room she was too scared to enter an hour earlier.

“You don’t know either. Maybe you will.”

They collapse across his cot together, still clutching at each other and giggling like a pair of fools who’ve just discovered moonshine.

“Emma’s gonna have a coronary in the morning.”

He sounds genuinely concerned, even affectionate, but the vague worry in his voice doesn’t stop James from pulling Steph closer under the heavy quilt that reminds them, as if they could ever forget, that everything they’ll have from this point on is from the Capitol, and at the pleasure of the Capitol.

“My hero,” he murmurs, lips brushing her shoulder.

“You know it’s _you_ that saved us, right? So many times, Stephanie.”

She knows that’s what Osborne thinks, at least.

“Who cares, Bucky? Long’s you’re here, and I’m here, does it even matter how we did it?”

“It matters a bit,” he murmurs, and she knows right away that he’s thinking of Sam.

“James-“

“No, I know. Thank god for that poor kid, Stephanie.”

“Yeah,” she says quietly, because what else is there to say? Bucky’s good arm is around her, gentle as a sigh; he stills when Steph reaches across him to brush her hand along his other one.

“How bad is it?”

He shrugs, knowing Steph will feel it since she’s lying half on top of him.

“They said it was a good sign, that I can feel it.”

It’s not, Steph thinks; it’s supposed to be a reminder, to her, that every time they think she’s out of line he’ll be the one to pay for it.

“You tell me, okay? I want to know when it gets too much.”

He nods in the dark.

“Sure, Steph. Aren’t you a little tired, even?”

She’s been tired practically since they woke her up in that awful room, with that awful man leering at her as he laid out his awful plans. It must have been so much worse for Bucky, all alone for _so many days_.

“Maybe. You gonna be okay like this?”

“Sure.”

His voice is soft and thready- he’s drifting off already.

“Long’s you stay. If they make you go away again I’ll die.”

The spike of fear that lances through Steph at those words is so viscerally real that it steals her very breath away. James raises his head, not quite awake but still somehow totally alert for her sake.

“What is it? What’s-“

“Nothing. We’re just fine.”  

They’re not, though. Eventually she’ll have to tell him, and then they’ll have to talk to Peggy, and in too few months altogether there’ll be the Victory Tour- but right now, just for tonight, Steph thinks it’s not completely unreasonable to keep all those doors firmly shut so there can be _one_ evening just for them.

“Sleep,” she murmurs, command and invitation intertwined.

“I’m not going anywhere, okay?”  

James smiles so close to her skin that she can feel it.

“You promise?”

“Yes,” Steph says, trusting him to understand that she means that in every way that could possibly exist between them. James nods, taking her word for it, and Steph smiles even as the hand that isn't in Bucky's hair clenches around the memory of a knife. Osborne was right about one thing: this- this boy, this feeling, this tiny world for two- is hers, and only hers. Let him try to take it from her, Stephanie decides as the train rattles on towards the middle districts. Let him  _try_ to touch her James again. Maybe  _then_ she'll show the country how this year's games would have gone if Bucky hadn't volunteered, and it had been up to Steph to fight her way back home to him. She turns her face to kiss his collar-bone, grinning at the pleased, mostly-asleep murmur that is his only response.

“Of course yes, you stupid boy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> really done now! of course there is so much room for a sequel (second arena with Loki and Sif and Tasha and Clint and Bruce and oh, possibilities) but in the meantime this is where they stop, with all their issues still up in the air and Bucky refusing to ever speak to Peggy again and where the hell is Gary, and, and, and. 
> 
> I hope people had fun! Thank you especially to everyone who stayed with this from the start, I know it took about four times longer than I thought it would but I'm very grateful for everyone who stayed with it all the way <3 <3

**Author's Note:**

> title is an English family's motto, apparently; it just means 'to conquer or to die,' which seemed appropriate.


End file.
